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CONTRIBUTIONS 


TO     THE 


SCIENCE    OF    MYTHOLOGY 


PROFESSOR  MAX  MULLER'S  WORKS 


Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Religion  :  Four  Lectures  delivered  at 
the  Royal  Institution  ;  with  Notes  and  Illustrations  on  Vedic  Literature 
Polynesian  Mythology,  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  &c.  Crown  8vo, 
3J.  6d. 

The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  as  illustrated  by  the  Religions  of 
India.     Hibbert  Lectures.     Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d. 

Natural  Religion.  The  Gifford  Lectures,  delivered  before  the  University 
of  Glasgow  in  1888.     Crown  8vo,  ^os.  6d. 

Physical  Religion.  Trie  Gifford  Lectures,  delivered  before  the  University 
of  Glasgow  in  1890.     Crown  8vo,  ios.  6d. 

Anthropological  Religion.  The  Gifford  Lectures,  delivered  before  the 
University  of  Glasgow  in  1891.     Crown  8vo,  10s.  6d. 

Theosophy  or  Pyschological  Religion.  The  Gifford  Lectures,  delivered 
before  the  University  of  Glasgow  in  1892.     Crown  8vo,  iojt.  6d. 

Three  Lectures  on  the  Vedanta  Philosophy,  delivered  at  the  Royal 
Institution  in  March,  1894.     8vo,  5s. 

The  Science  of  Language.  Founded  on  Lectures  delivered  at  the  Royal 
Institution  in  1861  and  1863.     2  vols.     Crown  8vo,  21.?. 

Three  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language  and  its  Place  in 
General  Education.    Crown  8vo,  3$. 

India,  what  can  it  teach  us?  A  Course  of  Lectures  delivered  before 
the  University  of  Cambridge.     Crown  8vo,  3s.  6d. 

The  Science  of  Thought.     8vo,  21s. 

Three  Introductory  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Thought.     8vo,  2s.  6d. 

Biographies  of  Words,  and  the  Home  of  the  Aryas.     Crown  8vo,  7s.  6d. 

Chips  from  a  German  Workshop.     New  Edition,  in  Four  Volumes. 


Vol.  I.  Recent  Essays  and  Ac- 
dresses.    Crown  8vo,  6s.  6d.  net. 

Vol.  II.  Biographical  Essays. 
Crown  8vo,  6s.  6d.  net. 

Vol.  III.  Essays  on  Language  and 


Literature.     Crown  8vo,   6s. 
6d.  net. 
Vol.   IV.    Essays    on    Mythology 
and    Folklore.      Crown    8vo, 
8s.  6d.  net. 


The  Second,  Third,  and  Fourth  Book  of  the  Hitopadesa  ;  containing 
the  Sanskrit  Text,  with  Interlinear  Translation.     7.?.  6d. 

A  Sanskrit  Grammar  for  Beginners.     New  and  Abridged  Edition.     By 
A.  A.  Macdonell.     Crown  8vo,  6s. 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

LONDON,  NEW  YORK  AND  BOMBAY 


CONTRIBUTIONS 


TO  THE 


SCIENCE  OF  MYTHOLOGY 


Right  Hon.  Professor  F.  MAX   MULLER,  K.M. 


MEMBER    OF   THE    FRENCH    INSTITUTE 


IN    TWO   VOLUMES 
VOL.    I 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

39    PATERNOSTER    ROW,    LONDON 

NEW   YORK   AND   BOMBAY 

1897 

All  rights  resen'cd 


©rfora 

HORACE    HART,    PRINTER    TO   THE    UNIVERSITY 


©e&icafed 


TO 


HIS    MAJESTY   OSCAR    II 

KING  OF  SWEDEN  AND  NORWAY 

THE    WISE    RULER 

THE    ENLIGHTENED    FRIEND   OF    LITERATURE 

THE     GENEROUS     PATRON     OF     ORIENTAL     LEARNING 

Jn  Commemoration 

OF    THE     TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS    JUBILEE    OF 
A   PEACEFUL   AND    ILLUSTRIOUS  REIGN 


©*forc 

HORACE    HART,    PRINTER    TO   THE    UNIVERSITY 


TO 

HIS    MAJESTY   OSCAR    II 

KING  OF  SWEDEN  AND  NORWAY 

THE   WISE   RULER 

THE    ENLIGHTENED    FRIEND    OF    LITERATURE 

THE    GENEROUS     PATRON     OF    ORIENTAL    LEARNING 

Jn  Commemoration 

OF    THE    TWENTY-FIVE    YEARS    JUBILEE    OF 
A    PEACEFUL   AND   ILLUSTRIOUS  REIGN 


PREFACE. 


I  have  hesitated  for  a  long  time  before  making 
up  my  mind  to  publish  these  two  volumes  on  the 
Science  of  Mythology.  I  was  sorry,  no  doubt,  that 
I  should  have  to  leave  this  gap  in  the  work  of  my 
life  as  I  had  planned  it  many  years  ago,  namely  an 
exposition,  however  imperfect,  of  the  four  Sciences 
of  Language,  Mythology,  Religion,  and  Thought, 
following  each  other  in  natural  succession,  and 
comprehending  the  whole  sphere  of  activity  of  the 
human  mind  from  the  earliest  period  within  the 
reach  of  our  knowledge   to  the  present   day. 

There  is  nothing  more  ancient  in  the  world  than 
language.  The  history  of  man  begins,  not  with  rude 
flints,  rock  temples  or  pyramids,  but  with  language. 

The  second  stage  is  represented  by  myths  as  the 
first  attempts  at  translating  the  phenomena  of 
nature  into  thought. 

The  third  stage  is  that  of  religion  or  the  recognition 
of  moral  powers,  and  in  the  end  of  One  Moral  Power 
behind  and  above  all  nature. 

The  fourth  and  last  is  philosophy,  or  a  critique  of 
the  powers  of  reason  in  their  legitimate  working 
on  the  data  of  experience. 

I  have  often  explained  how  I  thought  that  the 
Science  of  Mythology  ought  to  be  studied,  but 
I  regretted  that  neither  time  nor  strength  was 
left  to  me  for  doing  what  I  had  been  allowed  to  do 


vi  PREFACE. 

for  the  other  three  sciences 1,  namely  to  collect  in 
a  comprehensive  form  what  I  had  written  and  what 
I  still  wished  to  say.  We  have  all  to  learn  the 
lesson  when  it  is  time  for  us  to  retire  and  to  make 
room  for  younger  and  more  vigorous  workers.  Nor 
is  there  any  lack  of  young  scholars  who,  if  they 
thought  there  was  any  necessity  for  it,  would  be 
quite  ready  and  quite  able  to  defend  the  old  fortress 
of  Comparative  Mythology,  and  would  do  it  far 
more  valiantly  and  efficiently  than  an  old  soldier  of 
seventy-three  years  of  age  could  ever  hope  to  do. 

But  when  T  was  told  in  so  many  words  that  as 
a  defender  of  mythological  orthodoxy  '  I  stood  quite 
alone,  a  poor  Athanasius  contra  mundum,'  that  all 
my  followers  and  supporters  had  deserted  me,  and 
'  that  the  number  of  my  victorious  adversaries  was 
legion,'  I  felt  that  this  was  really  a  personal  challenge, 
and  that,  if  possible,  I  should  once  more  speak  out 
myself,  if  only  to  show  that  such  statements  were 
not  only  unsupported  by  any  facts,  but  were  in 
glaring  opposition  to  the  facts  as  far  at  least  as  they 

1  I.  The  Science  of  Language,  two  vols.,  last  edition,  1891. 
II.  The  Science  of  Religion," — 

(1)  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Keligion,  1870. 

(2)  The  Origin   and   Growth  of  Ke- )  _.. ,      ,  _     , 

'      ..   .  _   „  >  Hibbert  Lectures, 

ligion,  1878,  J 

(3)  Natural  Eeligion,  1888,  \ 

(4)  Physical  Keligion,  1890, 

(5)  Anthropological  Keligion,  1891,     r  Gifford  Lectures. 

(6)  Theosophy  or  Psychological  Re- 

ligion, 1892,  J 

III.   The  Science  of  Thought,  one  vol.,  1887. 

Translation  of  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  1881  ; 
last  edition,  1896. 


PREFACE. 


are  known  to  myself.  It  is  easy  to  say  such  things 
in  a  number  of  daily  papers,  but  they  do  not  become 
true  for  all  that.  If,  as  happens  sometimes,  the 
same  critic  is  on  the  staff  of  many  papers,  and  has  to 
supply  copy  every  day,  every  week,  or  every  month, 
the  broken  rays  of  one  brilliant  star  may  produce 
the  dazzling  impression  of  many  independent  lights, 
and  there  has  been  of  late  such  a  galaxy  of  sparkling 
articles  on  Comparative  Mythology  and  Folklore, 
that  even  those  who  are  themselves  opposed  to  this 
new  science,  have  at  last  expressed  their  disapproval 
of  the  'journalistic  mist'  that  has  been  raised,  and 
that  threatens  to  obscure  the  real  problems  of  the 
Science  of  Mythology. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  writer  or  writers  of 
these  articles  are  fully  persuaded  of  their  truth,  but 
though  they  generally  appeal  to  the  enlightened 
opinion  of  the  public  at  large,  I  feel  convinced  that 
they  will  consider  the  judgment  of  real  scholars  also 
as  not  entirely  valueless  or  unworthy  of  their  notice. 

In  what  I  am  going  to  say  I  am  not  defending 
myself,  though  I  am  always  represented,  if  not  as 
the  true  founder,  at  all  events  as  the  only  champion 
left  to  defend  the  Science  of  Mythology.  I  can 
therefore  speak  with  all  the  more  freedom  and  with- 
out fear  of  being  considered  egotistical.  I  am 
pleading  pro  domo,  but  not  for  myself.  Scholars 
come  and  go  and  are  forgotten,  but  the  road  which 
they  have  opened  remains,  other  scholars  follow  in 
their  footsteps,  and  though  some  of  them  retrace 
their  steps,  on  the  whole  there  is  progress.  This 
conviction  is  our  best  reward,  and  gives  us  that  real 


vin  PREFACE. 

joy  in  our  work  which  merely  personal  motives  can 
never  supply. 

As  so  many  names  have  been  quoted  to  show  that 
Comparative  Mythology  is  dead,  I  venture  first  of 
all  to  quote  a  few  names,  but  names  of  real  scholars 
who  have  done  valuable  service  in  the  cultivation  of 
Comparative  Mythology  in  the  principal  countries 
of  Europe.     Let  us  begin  with  Italy. 

What  would  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  say  if  he  read  the 
words  of  Signor  Canizzaro  in  his  '  Genesi  ed  Evolu- 
zione  del  Mito,'  '  Degli  avversari  il  Lang  ha  ceduto  le 
armi'  ?    (See  further  on,  p.  27.) 

Let  us  proceed  next  to  Holland.  Professor  Tiele, 
who  had  actually  been  claimed  as  an  ally  of  the  vic- 
torious army,  declares  : — '  Je  dois  m'elever,  au  nom  de 
la  science  mythologique  et  de  l'exactitude  .  .  .  contre 
une  methode  qui  ne  fait  que  glisser  sur  des  problemes 
de  premiere  importance. '  (See  further  on,  p.  35.)  And 
again  : — '  Ces  braves  gens  qui,  pour  peu  qu'ils  aient  lu 
un  ou  deux  livres  de  mythologie  et  d'anthropologie, 
et  un  ou  deux  recits  de  voyages,  ne  manqueront  pas 
de  se  mettre  a  comparer  a  tort  et  a  travers,  et  pour 
tout  resultat  produiront  la  confusion.'  (p.  37.) 

It  is  no  doubt  in  Germany  that  the  old  or  so-called 
effete  school  of  Comparative  Mythology  counts  the 
largest  number  of  supporters,  though  it  has  also  some 
formidable  opponents  there.  But  if  we  may  accept 
Professor  Brugmaim  as  a  worthy  representative  of 
the  new  school  of  Comparative  Philology  in  Germany, 
we  shall  find  that  he,  in  the  very  first  sentence 
of  his  Vergleichende  Grammatik,  represents  Indo- 
Germauic  Mythology  by  the  side  of  Indo-Germanic 


PREFACE. 


Grammar  as  the  two  constituent  parts  of  Indo- 
Germanic  Philology,  which  he  defines  as  having  for 
its  object  the  study  of  the  development  of  culture 
of  the  Indo-Germanic  people  from  the  time  of  their 
original  community  to  our  own  time. 

Turning  to  America,  no  one  would  object  to  the 
President  of  the  Folklore  Society,  Mr.  Horatio  Hale, 
as  a  trustworthy  judge  and  spokesman  on  this 
subject.  He  admits,  indeed,  that  of  late  the  ethno- 
logical school  has  enjoyed  greater  popularity  than 
the  linguistic  school  of  Comparative  Mythology,  but 
how  does  he  account  for  it  ?  '  The  patient  toil,'  he 
writes,  '  and  protracted  mental  exertion  required  to 
penetrate  into  the  mysteries  of  a  strange  language 
and  to  acquire  a  knowledge  profound  enough  to 
afford  the  means  of  determining  the  intellectual 
endowments  of  the  people  who  speak  it,  are  such 
as  very  few  men  of  science  have  been  willing  to 
undergo.'  (See  hereafter,  p.  30.)  This  cannot 
surely  be  said  of  Mr.  Horatio  Hale  himself. 

In  France  equally  strong  protests  have  been  raised 
by  such  men  as  M.  Michel  Breal  and  M.  A.  Barth, 
both  Members  of  the  French  Institute,  and  M.  Victor 
Henry,  Professor  at  the  Sorbonne.  In  answer  to 
the  often  repeated  notice  of  the  premature  death, 
and  the  solemn  funeral  of  Comparative  Mythology, 
Professor  Victor  Henry  writes  : — '  Mais  si  Ton  vous 
dit  que  l'ecole  adverse  est  morte,  n'en  croyez  rien. 
Si  elle  n'etait  pas  bien  vivante  on  ne  la  tuerait  pas 
tous  les  jours.'     (Hereafter,  p.  32.) 

As  to  M.  A.  Barth,  who  has  been  quoted  as  another 
of  my  many  demolishers,  whereas  I  had  always  looked 


PREFACE. 


upon  him  as  one  of  the  most  honest  and  most 
charming  of  my  critics,  he  blames  me  indeed  for  my 
uncompromising  opposition  to  the  theory  of  a  primi- 
tive fetishism.  '  M.  Max  Miiller,'  he  writes,  '  n'a  pas 
un  peu  le  tort  d'avoir  trop  raison.'  I  quite  under- 
stand what  he  means,  but  I  doubt  whether  he  is 
fully  aware  of  how  much  mischief  is  done  by  that 
easy  bridge  thrown  across  all  the  difficulties  of  the 
Science  of  Mythology,  and  how  seriously  it  would 
interfere  with  the  building  of  a  more  substantial 
and  solid  arch  across  the  abyss  that  has  to  be 
bridged  over  by  the  students  of  mythology. 

I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  quoting  his  words 
because  they  sum  up,  far  better  than  I  could  do  it, 
the  principles  that  ought  to  guide  us,  and  which 
I  have  defended  with  more  or  less  success  for 
nearly  fifty  years.  I  quote  from  his  '  Bulletin  de  la 
Mythologie  Aryenne,'  in  the  Revue  de  l'Histoire  des 
Religions,  1880,  p.  109  : — 

'  Mais,  dans  l'ensemble,  personne  ne  conteste  plus 
que  les  mythes,  a  l'origine,  sont  l'expression  naturelle 
et  populaire  de  faits  fort  simples ;  que  les  plus 
anciens  notamment  se  rapportent  aux  phenomenes 
les  plus  ordinaires  de  l'ordre  physique  ;  qu'ils  sont 
dans  la  dependance  la  plus  etroite  du  langage,  dont 
ils  ne  sont  tres  souvent  qu'une  forme  vieillie  ;  qu'il 
en  est  de  leur  immense  variete  comme  de  celle  des 
mots,  l'une  se  reduisant  a  un  petit  nombre  d'ele- 
ments,  l'autre  a  un  petit  nombre  de  racines ;  que, 
malgre  leur  fluidite  et  leur  confusion  apparente,  ils 
possedent  une  certaine  cohesion  et  sont  relies  par 
une   logique    cachee ;   qu'ils    ne   passent    pas   aussi 


PREFACE. 


facilement,  ni  surtout  d'une  maniere  aussi  desor- 
donnee  qu'on  l'avait  cm,  dun  peuple  a  un  autre 
peuple,  d'une  race  a  une  autre  race,  mais  que,  comme 
le  langage,  ils  ne  se  transmettent  bien  que  par 
heritage,  et  qu'il  y  a  des  signes  pour  reconnaltre 
les  mythes  d'emprunt,  comme  il  y  en  a  pour  recon- 
naltre les  mots  d'emprunt ;  que,  par  consequent,  il 
est  possible,  d'une  part,  de  les  reconstruire  meme 
a  l'inspection  d'un  seul  fragment,  a  peu  pres  comme 
a  l'inspection  d'un  seul  derive  on  restitue  a  une 
langue  toute  une  famille  de  mots,  et,  d'autre  part, 
d'affirmer  d'un  mythe,  quand  on  le  trouve  chez  deux 
ou  plusieurs  rameaux  d'une  famille  ethnique,  qu'il 
appartenait  aussi  a  la  branche  d'ou  ces  rameaux 
sont  sortis,  quand  on  le  trouve  chez  tous  les  rameaux, 
qu'il  appartenait  deja  a  la  souche  commune.' 

I  can  subscribe  to  every  word  of  this  passage, 
which  I  doubt  whether  Mr.  Lang,  or  Mr.  Gladstone 
or  Professor  Gruppe  could  do,  except  that  I  hold 
that  even  if  the  same  myth  can  be  traced  in  two 
branches  only,  one  belonging  to  the  North- Western, 
the  other  to  the  South-Eastern  division  of  the 
Aryan  family,  it  must  have  existed  before  the 
Aryan  Separation. 

Were  I  to  go  on  quoting  scholar  after  scholar, 
I  should  become  very  tedious,  I  fear,  and  yet,  not 
being  any  longer  a  reader  of  many  journals  or  news- 
papers, I  have  referred  to  such  papers  only  as  were 
sent  to  me  by  their  writers,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  many  similar  expressions  of  opinion  have 
escaped  me.  I  prefer  therefore  to  wait  till  Mr.  Lang 
or  his  friends  can  produce  one  single  Vedic  scholar 


xii  PREFACE. 

who  is  not  convinced  that  the  principles  of  Compara- 
tive Mythology,  as  laid  down  by  Bopp,  Grimm,  Pott, 
Burnouf,  and  followed  by  Kuhn,  Ben  fey,  Grassmaim, 
Schwartz,  Mannhardt,  Osthoff,  Breal,  Decharme, 
Darmesteter,  Roscher,  Mehlis,  Wackernagel,  Meyer, 
Victor  Henry,  Barth,  v.  Schroeder,  Bloomfield, 
Hopkins,  Fay,  Ehni,  Oldenberg1,  and  myself  are 
right,  however  difficult  it  may  be  to  carry  them  out 
so  as  to  secure  a  unanimous  assent.  Surely,  with 
such  support  behind  me,  I  am  not  yet  quite  like 
Athanasius  contra  mundum,  though  even  if  I  were, 
I  should  gladly  say,  Omen  accipio. 

There  is  one  kind  of  criticism  which  is  extremely 
useful,  and  for  which  I  have  always  felt  extremely 
grateful.  No  comparative  mythologist  can  claim  to 
be  equally  familiar  with  all  the  languages  from 
which  he  has  to  draw  his  materials.  If  therefore 
the  classical  scholar  corrects  a  mistake  committed 
by  a  Sanskrit  or  Babylonian  scholar,  he  deserves 
nothing  but  gratitude.  But  there  has  been  of  late 
an  extraordinary  recrudescence  of  that  old  classical 
orthodoxy  which  was  rampant  in  the  days  of  Bopp 
and  Pott.  Otfried  Miiller  and  Welcker  would 
really  seem  to  have  written  in  vain.  As  in  former 
days  certain  scholars  hooted  the  idea  that  Greek 
and  Latin  grammar  received  its  true  light  from 
Sanskrit,  they  now  express  their  horror  at  the 
thought  that  any  Greek  deity  could  have  its  proto- 
type in  the  Veda.   They  had  indeed  to  swallow  Dyaus 

1  I  mention  the  names  of  those  only  who  have  kindly  sent 
me  their  publications,  and  to  whom,  if  I  have  not  done  so 
before,  I  return  herewith  my  best  thanks. 


PKEFACE.  xm 

as  the  prototype  of  Zeus,  but  they  are  trying  hard 
to  imitate  Kronos  in  the  treatment  of  his  children. 
The  fact  is  that  most  of  those  who  have  criticised 
the  work  of  Comparative  Mythologists  seem  ignorant 
of  the  real  objects  of  that  new  science.    They  repeat 
again  and  again  that  to  the  mind  of  Homer  Zeus  was 
not  the  sky,  Apollon  was  not  the  sun,  or  Athene  the 
dawn.    But  no  one,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  said  so. 
All  that  we  hold  is  that  as  Greek  and  Sanskrit  share 
a  large    number  of  words   in  common,  words  often 
very  different  in  sound  and  very  different  in  meaning 
also,  they  also  shared  the  names  of  certain  so-called 
Devas  or    Dii    in    common,    although    their    names 
varied  and  their  characters  had  been  considerably 
changed.      Greek  scholars   have  had  to  learn  that 
the  Athene  of  Phidias  was  preceded  by  the  hideous 
archaic  statues  of  the  same  goddess,  nay  that  many 
of  the    Greek  gods    were    represented   at   first    by 
uncouth  stones  without  a  trace   of  human  beauty. 
And  yet  we  know  now  that  there  was  an  unbroken 
continuity  between  these  rude  idols  and  the  master- 
works  of  Praxiteles.     Why  will  they  not  learn  the 
same  lesson  in  Mythology  ?     No  doubt  the  Greek 
Zeus    is    separated    by    thousands    of    miles    and 
thousands  of  thoughts  from  the  Vedic  Dyaus,  yet 
the  original   concept  of  the  two  was  one  and  the 
same.     And  this  lesson  that  there  was  continuity 
connecting  the  first  crude  and  barbarous  attempts 
at  expressing  whether  in  wood,  stone,  or  words,  the 
first  nascent  ideas  of  divine  powers,  with  the  more 
recent  creations  of  the  poetry  of  Homer  and  the  art 
of  Phidias,  was  surely  a  lesson  worth  learning. 


XIV  PREFACE. 

According  to  Plutarch  (Quaest.  Rom.  lxxvii),  some 
persons  even  in  his  time  held  that  Zeus  was  the  sun 
and  Here  the  moon  1,  but  even  in  the  Vedic  hymns 
the  gods  are  no  longer  identified  with  the  natural 
phenomena  from  which  they  took  their  origin.  No 
Comparative  Mythologist  would  say  that  the  Greek 
Athene  was  the  dawn  ;  or  if  they  did,  all  they  could 
mean  was  that  her  name  was  originally  a  name  of 
the  dawn,  that  she  took  her  being  from  the  dawn, 
and  then  grew  gradually  into  a  goddess  of  light  and 
wisdom  in  which  all  traces  of  the  dawn  had  vanished, 
so  that  it  was  only  a  microscopic  analysis  of  her 
name  that  could  disclose  her  true  birthplace.  If 
Greek  scholars  will  not  learn  these  simple  lessons, 
if  they  think  they  can  help  us  in  any  way  by  simply 
saying  that  Zeus  is  very  different  from  Dyaus,  and 
Athene  from  Ahana,  they  forget  that  this  is  the 
very  position  from  which  we  start.  The  Brahma- 
putra is  very  different  from  the  Ganges,  the  question 
is,  can  geographical  research  prove  that  both  start 
from  the  same  latitude.  Have  the  Greek  gods  no 
antecedents,  no  source,  rational  or  irrational,  no 
raison  d'etre  at  all  ?  That  is  the  question  of  real 
interest,  not  whether  in  a  comparison  of  Athene 
and  Ahana,  a  certain  phonetic  law  has  been  contra- 
vened. If  the  geologists  find  one  Ammonite  among 
'  the  first  bones  of  Time,'  they  know  at  once  that  it 
is  not  a  brute  stone,  but  that  its  ribs  and  knobs 
mean    former    life    and   purpose.      The  same  if  the 

Aet  8e  [if]  I'Ofxi^eiv  arrXas   eiKovas  eKcivuiv   tovtovs,  dXX'   aiiTou   iv    v\y 
Aia  rbv  tJXiov,  Kai  avrrjv  ti)v  "Hpav  iv  v\j]  rrjv  crt\r]it]V. 


PREFACE.  XV 

mythologist  finds  the  name  of  Dyaus  in  the  hymns 
of  the  Veda,  he  knows  that  it  is  not  a  mere  brute 
sound,  but  that  there  is  reason  and  purpose  in  it. 
And  as  geologists,  if  they  meet  with  Ammonites 
but  slightly  differing  from  each  other  in  palaeozoic 
and  mesozoic  rocks,  feel  convinced  that  they  all 
had  the  same  origin,  may  not  the  mythologists  on 
meeting  with  Zeus  in  Greece,  and  with  Jupiter  in 
Rome,  feel  certain  that  Dyaus,  Zeus,  and  Jupiter 
are  the  same  word,  and  express  the  same  thought, 
only  with  slight  local  differences  of  pronunciation  ? 
It  has  been  said  that  Richard  Owen  could  re- 
construct the  whole  skeleton  of  an  animal  if  he  had 
only  one  tooth  to  work  on  ;  and  is  it  so  very  strange 
then  that  a  Comparative  Mythologist,  if  he  had  only 
one  Dyaus  to  start  from,  should  be  able  to  draw  out 
the  outlines  of  a  whole  intellectual  period,  of  a  whole 
system  of  thought,  even  if  it  had  left  us  no  more 
than  this  one  Jupiter  Amnion  ?  Of  course,  if  we 
imagine  that  Athene  sprang  full  grown  and  full 
named  from  the  head  of  Zeus,  or  from  the  brain  of 
Homer,  there  is  an  end  of  Comparative,  nay  of  all 
truly  scientific  Mythology ;  but  if  there  was  growth 
in  Aryan  mythology  as  in  Aryan  language,  then  the 
nearer  we  can  get  to  the  germs  and  seeds,  the  better 
for  us  as  intelligent  students  of  the  past.  It  is 
a  most  unfortunate  idea  of  classical  scholars  to 
imagine  that  Comparative  Mythologists  have  for- 
gotten all  their  Greek  and  Latin,  and  cannot  see  the 
differences  between  Vedic  and  Homeric  deities. 
They  are  taken  to  task  for  saying  things  which  they 
never  dreamt  of,  and  after  that  nothing,  of  course,  is 


XVI  PEEFACE. 

easier  than  to  annihilate  them.  We  are  first  made 
into  targets  and  placed  in  position  at  about  ten  feet 
distance,  and  then  there  is  great  joy,  because  e very- 
arrow  hits.  Does  Dr.  Erwin  Rhode  (Psyche,  p.  281) 
really  imagine  that  the  equation  $arvara  =  Kepfiepos 
can  be  disposed  of  by  the  obiter  dictum,  that  it  is 
badly  supported  ?  The  Vedic  ifo'shis  had  no  Hades, 
no  Styx,  no  Charon,  no  three-headed  watch-dog. 
But  if  Kerberos  is  the  same  word  as  $arvara,  the 
germ  of  the  idea  that  afterwards  developed  into 
Kerberos,  and  into  the  dogs  of  Sarama,  must  surely 
have  existed  before  the  Aryan  Separation,  and  must 
be  discovered  in  that  nocturnal  darkness,  that 
sarvaram  tamas,  which  native  mythologists  in  India 
had  not  yet  quite  forgotten  in  post -Vedic  times. 
What  Dr.  Rhode  says  about  Kerberos  being  without 
a  name  in  Homer,  and  named  for  the  first  time  by 
Hesiod,  was  not  quite  unknown,  and  had,  I  thought, 
been  fully  explained  by  myself;  but  it  seemed  to 
me  to  confirm  rather  than  to  weaken  my  argument 
that  Kerberos  meant  originally  nocturnal,  and 
became  afterwards  changed  and  personified  in 
Greece  as  well  as  in  India,  and  in  each  country 
according  to  its  own  fashion. 

But  while  criticisms  like  those  of  Dr.  Rhode  or 
Professor  Gruppe  admit  at  all  events  of  an  answer, 
it  is  difficult  to  know  what  to  do  with  those  general 
charges  which  seem  to  be  aimed  at  our  moral 
character  rather  than  at  our  linguistic  qualifica- 
tions. 

It  has,  for  instance,  been  broadly  hinted  that  I  had 
no  right  to   quote  scholars   such  as  Mannhardt  or 


PREFACE.  XVll 


Oldenberg  as  my  supporters.  Much  has  always  been 
made  of  Mannhardt's  having  changed  his  mind, 
and  having  left  us,  to  become  himself  the  founder  of 
another  school  of  Comparative  Mythology.  I  have 
even  been  accused  of  intentionally  ignoring  or 
suppressing  Mannhardt's  labours.  How  charitable  ! 
Now,  first  of  all,  it  is  well  known,  and  ought  not  to 
have  been  ignored,  that  Mannhardt,  though  for  a 
time  he  expressed  his  mistrust  in  some  of  the  results 
of  Comparative  Mythology,  returned  at  last  to  his 
old  colours,  as  may  be  seen  from  his  instructive 
essay — not  to  use  the  journalistic  terms  of  monu- 
mental, or  epoch-making — Die  Lettischen  Sonnen- 
mythen,  published  in  1875.  Mannhardt  died  in 
1880.  All  who  knew  Mannhardt  know  how  much 
he  was  under  the  influence  of  Haupt,  Scherer,  and 
Miillenhof,  and  how  much  he  tried  to  accommodate 
himself  to  the  views  of  his  friends  and  benefactors. 
This  is  what  made  him  swerve  for  a  time  from  the 
path  traced  out  by  Bopp  and  Grimm  and  Burnouf. 
But  even  then  the  work  he  did  in  collecting  the 
popular  customs  and  superstitions  still  existing  in 
many  parts  of  Germany,  and  dating,  it  may  be, 
from  the  earliest  mythological  times,  proved  most 
useful  to  many  students  of  Comparative  Mythology. 
If  I  did  not  refer  to  his  work  in  my  former  contri- 
butions to  the  Science  of  Mythology,  the  reason  was 
simple  enough.  It  was  not,  as  has  been  suggested, 
my  wish  to  suppress  it  (todtschweigen),  but  simply 
my  want  of  knowledge  of  the  materials  with  which 
he  dealt,  the  popular  customs  and  traditions  of 
Germany,  and  therefore  the  consciousness  of  my 
vol.  I.  b 


xviii  PREFACE. 


incompetence  to  sit  in  judgment  on  his  labours. 
Surely  each  scholar  has  a  right  to  restrict  the 
sphere  of  his  own  work,  and  what  necessity  was 
there  for  me  to  praise  or  to  criticise  the  labours  of 
Mannhardt,  when  in  England  he  had  found  so 
worthy  an  exponent  and  so  eloquent  a  disciple  as 
Mr.  Frazer  ?  Mannhardt's  state  of  mind  with  regard 
to  the  general  principles  of  Comparative  Philology 
has  been  so  exactly  the  same  as  my  own,  that 
I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  quoting  at  least 
a  few  passages  from  his  latest  letters. 

When  Mannhardt  had  published  his  Lettish  Solar 
Myths  (1875),  he  met  Miillenhof  at  Berlin  in  1876, 
and  discussed  the  whole  subject  with  him.  Miillenhof 
had  evidently  imbibed  his  ideas  of  Comparative 
Mythology  from  the  works  of  Dupuis,  Schwenck, 
Hitzig,  Claussen,  or  Nork,  and  had  transferred  the 
prejudice,  caused  by  them,  to  the  works  of  Bopp 
and  Kuhn.  No  wonder  that  Miillenhof  discouraged 
Mannhardt,  and  actually  shook  him  in  his  convic- 
tions. But  when  Mannhardt  had  returned  to  his 
quiet  home  and  his  books  and  papers,  he  wrote  on 
May  7,  1876,  to  his  teacher  and  friend1: — 'As  it 
often  happens  in  such  discussions,  the  necessity  of 
justifying  myself  in  answer  to  your  unexpected 
misgivings  with  regard  to  the  whole  of  my  Lettish 
Sun-songs,  prevented  me  from  confessing  to  you 
that  I  myself  felt  uncomfortable  at  the  extent  which 
Solar  Myths  threatened  to  assume  in  my  compari- 
sons, nay,  that  I  felt  it  as  a  painful  fiasco,  because 

1  Mythologische  Forschungen,  p.  xxv. 


PREFACE.  xix 

in  opening  this  new  point  of  view,  materials  seemed 
to  rush  in  from  all  sides  and  to  arrange  themselves 
under  it,  so  that  the  sad  danger  seemed  inevitable 
of  everything  becoming  everything.'  [Are  not  these 
almost  the  same  words  which  I  used  years  ago 
when  complaining  of  the  omnipresent  Sun  and  the 
inevitable  Dawn  appearing  in  ever  so  many  dis- 
guises behind  the  veil  of  ancient  mythology  ?  And 
have  I  not  gone  through  exactly  the  same  phases 
of  doubt  which  Mannhardt  here  describes,  and 
struggled  with  the  same  perplexities  ?  And  have 
we  not  in  the  end  arrived  both  at  the  same  con- 
clusion, so  that  I  can  without  reserve  subscribe  to 
the  concluding  words  of  that  indefatigable  student 
of  folklore  and  mythology  ?]  '  All  the  more/  he 
continues,  'as  I  care  for  nothing  but  the  discovery 
of  truth,  and  as  at  the  same  time  I  attribute  the 
greatest  value  to  your  judgment,  I  have  allowed 
your  and  Scherer's  hinted  objections  to  pass  again 
and  again  through  my  thoughts,  in  order  to  dis- 
cover their  true  foundation.  But  as  I  could  say 
to  myself  that  neither  of  you  could  be  so  much 
at  home  as  I  am  in  these  special  researches,  and 
that  you  could  not  have  gone  so  carefully  through 
my  work  as  it  deserves  (this  is  not  meant  as 
any  blame  to  you),  I  resumed  courage,  for  after- 
serious  examination  I  felt  convinced  that  in  the 
main  my  labours  have  not  been  useless,  nor  un- 
critical. I  am  very  far  from  looking  upon  all  myths 
as  psychical  reflexions  of  physical  phenomena,  still 
less  as  of  exclusively  solar  or  meteorological 
phenomena,  like  Kuhn,  Schwartz,  Max  Mliller  and 

b  2 


PREFACE. 


their  school.'  [Where  has  any  one  of  us  ever  done 
this  ?  We  have  explained  a  certain  number  of 
myths,  as  well  as  we  could  ;  not  one  of  us  has  ever 
said  that  we  had  explained  all  myths,  though 
at  present  I  must  confess  with  Mannhardt,  that  a 
far  larger  number  of  myths  than  I  had  formerly 
suspected  have  since  rushed  in  and  claimed  their 
place  as  myths  of  a  solar  and  auroral  origin.] 

'  I  have  learnt  to  appreciate  poetical  and  literary 
production  as  an  essential  element  in  the  develop- 
ment of  mythology,  and  to  draw  and  utilise  the 
consequences  arising  from  this  state  of  things.' 
[Who  has  not  ?]  '  But  on  the  other  hand,  I  hold  it 
as  quite  certain  that  a  portion  of  the  older  myths 
arose  from  nature  poetry  which  is  no  longer  directly 
intelligible  to  us,  but  has  to  be  interpreted  by  means 
of  analogies.  Nor  does  it  follow  that  these  myths 
betray  any  historical  identity  ;  they  only  testify  to 
the  same  kind  of  conception  and  tendency  prevailing 
on  similar  stages  of  development.  Of  these  nature 
myths  some  have  reference  to  the  life  and  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  sun,  and  our  first  steps  towards 
an  understanding  of  them  are  helped  on  by  such 
nature  poetry  as  the  Lettish,  which  has  not  yet 
been  obscured  by  artistic  and  poetical  reflexion. 
In  that  poetry  mythical  personalities  confessedly 
belonging  to  a  solar  sphere  are  transferred  to  a 
large  number  of  poetical  representatives,  of  which 
the  explanation  must  consequently  be  found  in  the 
same  (solar)  sphere  of  nature.  My  method  here 
is  just  the  same  as  that  applied  by  me  to  the 
Tree-cult.' 


PREFACE. 


Where  is  there  any  difference  between  this,  the 
latest  and  final  system  adopted  by  Mannhardt,  and 
my  own  system  which  I  put  forward  in  1856  ? 

The  one  point  where  there  is  any  real  difference 
between  him  and  myself  is  his  remark  that  the 
solar  myths  which  he  has  compared  among  different 
Aryan  nations,  do  not  betray  any  historical  identity. 
This  may  be  true  with  regard  to  solar  myths  like 
those  that  have  been  so  well  analysed  by  Sir  George 
Cox  and  other  followers  of  the  Analogical  School  of 
Comparative  Mythology  ;  but  it  can  hardly  be  said 
of  myths  in  which  the  principal  actors  have  actually 
the  same  name.  Unless  we  suppose  that  the  name 
of  Zeus  was  formed  independently  of  that  of  Dyaus, 
we  must  admit  that  Dyaush-pitar,  Jupiter,  and  Zeus 
had  the  same  historical  origin,  far  beyond  the  begin- 
ning of  our  ordinary  chronology  ;  even  though  many 
of  the  stories  told  of  them  may  be  of  much  later 
growth.  The  idea,  again,  that  there  was  a  kind  of 
marriage  between  the  sun  and  the  earth,  and  that 
the  wealth  of  the  harvest  was  the  result  of  that 
union,  has  been  met  with  in  the  traditions  of  the 
most  widely  distant  races,  entirely  unconnected 
historically.  But  when  we  read  of  Iasion,  the  son 
of  Zeus  and  Hemera  (dawn),  who  on  the  thrice- 
ploughed  field  became  the  husband  of  Demeter,  the 
offspring  of  that  marriage  being  called  Ploutos, 
wealth,  and  when  we  recognise  in  laaicov  the  Vedic 
name  of  the  sun,  Vivasvan,  i.  e.  FiFaaFoiv,  we  can 
hardly  doubt  the  real  and  historical  identity  of 
the  Vedic  and  the  Greek  names  of  the  Sun,  as 
the  husband  of  the  Earth,  and  the  son  of  the  Sky 


xxii  PREFACE. 


(Zeus)  and  the  Dawn  (Hemera).  It  should  also  be 
remembered  that  while  Saranyu  is  the  wife  of 
Vivasvat,  Demeter,  the  wife  of  Iasion,  is  sometimes 
called  Erinys.  Is  all  this  mere  chance  ?  I  need 
hardly  add  that  though  there  is  generally  great 
confusion  caused  by  the  varieties  of  the  name,  such 
as  Iasion,  Iason,  Iasos,  Iasios,  Iaseus  *,  we  ought 
always  to  distinguish  between  the  names  with 
short  a,  which  belonged  originally  to  the  beloved  of 
Deimeter,  and  the  names  with  long  a  peculiar  to  the 
lover  of  Medeia,  originally  a  healer  (tar/oos),  and 
therefore  the  pupil  of  Cheiron,  i.  e.  Cheirourgos. 
Sometimes,  however,  the  confusion  of  the  names 
seems  to  have  caused  confusion  in  the  myths  told  of 
Iasion  and  of  Iason,  so  that  occasionally  it  becomes 
difficult  to  disentangle  the  two  clusters  of  Iasonic 
legends. 

On  this,  however,  as  on  other  points,  it  would  not 
have  been  difficult  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  so  conscientious  and  truth-loving  a  student  as 
Mannhardt,  and  the  fact  that  he  sent  me  his  last 
essay,  Die  Lettischen  Sonnenmythen,  Verehrungs- 
voll,  shows,  at  all  events,  that  he  did  not  entertain 
for  my  mythological  labours  the  supreme  contempt 
which  they  have  roused  among  those  who  profess 
to  follow  in  Mannhardt's  footsteps. 

Lastly,  as  to  the  system  followed  by  Professor 
Oldenberg,  whatever  may  have  been  said  in  certain 
daily  papers,  I  still  think  that  I  was  perfectly  justi- 
fied in  quoting  him  as  belonging  to  our  much-abused 

1  Usener,  Gotternamen,  p.  156. 


PREFACE.  xxiii 

school  of  Comparative  Mythology.  As  far  as  our 
fundamental  principles  are  concerned,  he  is  as  loyal 
a  member  as  I  am  myself  of  '  that  school  of  physical 
allegorical  interpretation  which  looks  for  the  con- 
ception of  the  prominent  Devas  in  sky,  dawn,  sun, 
sunset,  moon,  water,  earth,  cloud,  clear  air,  light- 
ning, or  what  not.'  He  would  never  hesitate  to 
trace  Zeus  to  the  sky,  Eos  to  the  dawn,  Helios  to 
the  sun,  Selene  to  the  moon,  Apas  to  the  waters  or 
clouds,  PWthivi  to  the  earth,  Pan/anya  to  the  rain- 
cloud,  Antariksha  to  the  clear  air,  Apam  napat  or 
Agni  vaidyuta  to  the  lightning,  perhaps  Aditi  to 
'  What  not '  K 

Those  who  are  so  anxious  to  represent  him  as 
a  deserter,  have  evidently  not  read  his  book  to  the 
end,  where,  on  p.  591,  he  recapitulates  his  remarks, 
and  says  :  '  Most  and  the  greatest  of  the  gods  (of 
the  Aryas)  are  representatives  of  physical  powers, 
thunder  and  storm,  sun  and  moon,  the  morning  and 
evening  star,  and  the  fire,  the  kindly  friend  in  the 
houses  of  men.'  He  adds,  what  I  have  myself  so 
often  insisted  on,  that  in  the  case  of  many  of  these 
physical  gods  the  original  traits  of  their  character 
have  become  vague  and  faded,  and  a  long  develop- 
ment has  often  loosened,  nay  severed  their  connec- 
tion with  the  physical  substrata  from  whence  they 
arose. 

What  can  be  the  object  of  misrepresenting  facts 
which  can  be  so  easily  verified  either  by  a  reference 

1  See  Oldenberg,  1.  c,  p.  39  seq.,  'God  and  demons  in  their 
relation  to  nature  and  the  other  substrata  of  mythical  concep- 
tion. ' 


xxiv  PREFACE. 

to  published  books  or  by  a  letter  to  their  author 
at  Kiel  ?  Would  not  honest  work  and  mutual  help 
be  far  more  beneficial  than  forensic  ingenuity  and 
journalistic  eloquence  ? 

No  one  would  blame  Prof.  Oldenberg  and  others 
for  having  occasionally  looked  to  the  mythology  of 
savage  races  to  see  whether  they  offer  analogies  and 
possibly  explanations  of  Vedic  myths.     Must  I  not 
plead  guilty  as  one  of  the  oldest  offenders  in  that 
respect  myself?     But  in  O.'s  case,  we  may  at  all 
events  feel  certain  that  whenever  he  tries  to  illus- 
trate Aryan  by  Non-Aryan  myths,  or  the  customs 
of  Vedic  Rishis  by  the  accounts  of  travellers  among 
savao-e  races,  he  has  never  done  so  without  that 
critical    circumspection   and    hesitation   which    dis- 
tinguish his  other  researches.     Even  when  I  have 
differed  from  him,  it  may  be  my  own  fault,  as  I  do 
not  lay  claim  to  that  scholarlike  knowledge  of  the 
languages  and  traditions  of  savage  tribes  which  alone 
could  enable  me  to  form  an  independent  judgment 
of  the  labours  of  others.     All  I  maintain   against 
him  is  that  we  ought  first  to  try  to  explain  Vedic 
words  and  Vedic  customs  from  Vedic  and  Aryan 
sources,  before  we  turn  for  help  to  the  Red  Indians 
of  America.    Whatever  primeval  heirlooms  the  Vedic 
Rishis  may  share  in  common  with  Australian  Blacks, 
may  they  not  have  invented  some  of  their  myths 
after  they  had  left  the  period  of  primeval  savagery  ? 
I  doubt  whether  even  on  this  point  Professor  Olden- 
berg would  greatly  differ  from  me.     For  instance, 
I  still  think  that  a  careful  analysis  of  the  growth 
of  meaning  in  such  words  as  Brunst  and  Inbrunst, 


PEEFACE.  XXV 


burning  and  suffering,  breeding  and  brooding,  will 
throw  more  light  on  the  different  phases  of  tapas 
in  the  Veda  than  a  reference  to  the  wild  contortions 
and  plentiful  perspiration  of  Shamans  in  their  orgi- 
astic ravings.  But  by  all  means  let  us  have  as 
much  light  as  possible,  from  whatever  quarter  of 
the  world  it  may  come,  only  let  us  have  trustworthy 
authorities,  and  chapter  and  verse  for  the  names, 
the  legends  and  customs  of  each  savage  race  that 
is  supposed  to  supply  us  with  a  background  for  the 
ceremonial  as  taught  in  the  Brahmanas  and  Sutras, 
though  but  seldom  in  the  more  ancient  hymns  of  the 
Sanhitas  of  the  three  Vedas.  It  seems  to  me  diffi- 
cult to  explain  how  the  oldest  Vedic  period  should 
thus  have  been  skipped,  and  how  this  primordial 
Shamanism  should  suddenly  come  to  light  in  the 
later  periods  only.  However,  I  have  never  found 
any  difficulty  in  coming  to  an  understanding  with 
Professor  Oldenberg  as  a  fellow-worker,  and  even 
when  we  differed  we  could  understand  the  reason 
why,  and  could  in  the  end  agree  to  differ. 

All  this  is  so  obvious  that  I  know  I  shall  be 
blamed  by  my  friends  in  Germany  for  saying  so 
much  about  it.  They  hold  and  hold  rightly  that 
true  science  has  nothing  to  do  with  personalities, 
or  with  ephemeral  reviews,  whether  signed  or  un- 
signed. But  public  opinion  is  different  in  England, 
and  it  has  been  looked  upon  almost  as  a  crimen 
laesae  majestatis  that  I  should  not  have  replied  by 
name  to  Mr.  A.  Lang  and  other  busy  writers.  Nay, 
I  have  lately  been  told  in  return  and  with  an  air 
of  great  triumph  that  there  is  one  book  professedly 


xxvi  PREFACE. 


'  not  on  personal  Greek  religion,  but  on  Greek  cult1,' 
and  written  '  by  a  scholar  who  gives  up  the  contra- 
dictory systems  of  Greek  mythological  interpre- 
tations that  rest  on  the  philological  analysis  of 
proper  names,'  and  that  in  the  whole  of  it  my  name 
is  never  mentioned.  This,  no  doubt,  is  supposed  to 
settle  all  questions,  but  if  Dyaus  has  survived  the 
indignity  of  having  been  ignored,  and  rightly  ignored, 
in  a  book  on  the  Greek  cults,  written  by  a  scholar 
who  knows  the  value  of  discretion,  have  I  any 
reason  to  complain,  particularly  when  I  see  my  name 
so  often  quoted  in  books  on  the  cults  of  Hottentots 
and  Bushmen  ?  How  useful  it  would  be  if  other 
scholars  would  follow  his  excellent  example,  and 
confine  their  critical  remarks  to  languages  of  which 
they  know  at  least  the  alphabet  and  grammar. 

I  cannot  conclude  this  preface  without  expressing 
once  more  my  regret  at  the  many  imperfections 
which  I  have  no  doubt  will  be  discovered  in  these  two 
volumes.  Old  age  brings  weak  sight,  possibly  weak 
insight  also,  and  I  had  for  the  first  time  to  depend 
on  younger  eyes  to  read  my  proof-sheets.  My  thanks 
are  due  to  Professor  J.  Wright,  Dr.  Luders,  and 
Dr.  Winternitz  for  the  help  they  have  rendered  me. 

In  writing  Sanskrit  or  Greek  names,  I  have 
marked  the  long  vowels  by  a,  e,  6,  in  all  cases 
where  the  etymology  of  the  name  depends  on  the 
length  of  the  vowels.  I  write  therefore  Tethys,  but 
Thetis,  Themis.  I  do  not  mark  the  final  vowels, 
because  their  quantity  admits  of  no  doubt.     Hence 

1  See  Cosmopolis,  September,  1896,  p.  685. 


PREFACE. 


I  write  Herakles,  Hermes,  Here  or  Hera,  Seldne, 
Aphrodite.  Though  sometimes  this  sign  of  the 
length  of  a  vowel  may  have  been  omitted,  I  hope 
it  may  not  have  been  so  in  cases  where  it  could 
cause  any  ambiguity. 

I  am  much  afraid  also  that  many  a  book  or  essay 
on  Comparative  Mythology  published  in  Germany, 
France,  Italy,  Russia,  may  have  escaped  my  notice. 
Professor  Usener's  recent  book,  '  Gotternamen,' 
reached  me  too  late,  but  I  have  read  it  with  much  in- 
terest and  advantage,  because  it  opened  new  and  wide 
views  on  the  origin  of  Aryan  names  and  myths,  and 
strongly  confirmed  my  views  on  the  great  latitude 
in  the  choice  of  the  derivative  suffixes  of  mythological 
names.  Even  though  I  cannot  agree  with  all  his 
conclusions,  any  contribution  from  a  real  scholar  is 
always  welcome  and  will  always  prove  useful. 

As  these  contributions  to  the  Science  of  Mythology 
were  written  from  time  to  time,  I  found  that  they 
contained  frequent  repetitions. 

If  other  people  have  [complained  of  the  pages  of 
our  opponents  swarming  with  fetishes,  totems,  and 
all  the  rest,  I  am  afraid  they  will  now  return  the 
compliment  and  complain  of  the  constant  appearance 
and  reappearance  of  Dyaus,  Deva,  Varima,  Sarama, 
&c,  in  the  pages  of  these  volumes.  Many  of  them 
I  have  tried  to  remove,  other  s,  however,  had  to 
remain,  partly  because  the  context  would  have  been 
broken  by  their  removal,  partly  because  though  the 
subject  was  the  same,  it  was  treated  in  different 
places  with  a  different  purpose. 

If  it  is  thought,  however,  that  I  should  have  been 


xxviii  PREFACE. 


more  merciless  in  pruning  my  manuscript,  I  must 
plead  guilty,  and  I  have  nothing  to  say  in  my  defence 
except  that  I  had  to  answer  the  same  objections, 
repeated  year  after  year,  and  that  it  requires  more 
than  one  blow  to  drive  a  nail  through  a  thick  block. 

It  is  not  likely  that  I  shall  be  able  to  enter  again 
on  any  controversy  with  regard  to  the  facts  and 
opinions  put  forward  in  this  work.  I  leave  what 
I  have  written,  such  as  it  is,  to  my  friends  and 
fellow-workers,  grateful  beforehand  for  any  real 
corrections  and  improvements  they  may  have  to 
propose,  and  convinced  that  in  however  small  a 
degree  my  book  will  help  towards  a  better  under- 
standing of  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  most 
instructive  phases  in  the  historical  evolution  of  the 
human  mind,  during  its  progress  from  mythological 
stammerings  to  the  clear  enunciation  of  religious  and 
philosophical  truth. 

Whoever  recognises  in  mythology  the  last  traces 
of  a  poetical  conception  of  the  solemn  drama  of 
nature,  is  on  our  side,  and  whatever  the  grammar 
and  literature  may  be  which  he  chooses  for  his  own 
special  study,  whether  those  of  Babylon  or  Egypt, 
of  Lets  or  Fins,  of  Maoris  or  Mincoupies  or  Min- 
copies,  if  he  can  draw  from  them  any  contributions 
towards  the  elucidation  of  our  own  ancient  Aryan 
myths,  he  will  be  welcomed  as  a  useful  ally  and  as 
a  worthy  fellow-labourer  in  an  enterprise,  I  hope  not 
altogether  inglorious  or  barren  of  solid  results. 

F.  M.  M. 

Oxford, 
September,  1896. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTEE  I. 


Ketrospect. 


PAGE 

The  Beginnings  of  Comparative  Mythology   . 

I 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  &c 

3 

Story  of  Tuna  from  Mangaia          . 

4 

Proper  Use  of  the  Mythology  of  Uncivilised  Races 

7 

Dr.  Codrington  on  Totems     ..... 

7 

Meaning  of  'Primitive'         ..... 

12 

Kronos  and  his  Children 

13 

M 

Comparative   Mythology   founded    on  a  Comparison  o 

F 

i7 

19 

20 

Fermentation  of  Mythology  . 

21 

Study  of  Savage  Tribes 

24 

26 

Canizzaro      .....••• 

27 

29 

Mr.  Horatio  Hale 

29 

34 

Kronos  and  Polynesian  Folklore    .... 

36 

37 

Influence  of  Language  on  Mythology     . 

37 

How  Gender  influences  Mythology 

39 

40 

The  Sun 

4° 

42 

XXX 


CONTENTS. 


Deva    ...  .... 

Importance  of  Mythology  and  Philosophy 

Differences  of  Opinion  Natural 

Importance  of  Names    . 

Help  to  be  derived  from  Gender 

Dual  or  Correlative  Character  of  Deities 

The  Asvins  and  Helena 

Many-sidedness  of  Ancient  Gods    . 

Etymology  uncertain 

Mythological  and  Historical  Elements 

Herakles,  Alexander,  Charlemagne 

Mythology  Anomalous 

Stages  of  Mythology 

Anomalous  Names 

Vedic  Names 

Folk-etymologies  . 

Words  without  any  Etymology 

Study  of  Mythology  changed 


PAGE 

43 
44 
44 
45 
46 
48 
48 
49 
5° 
5i 
52 
53 
54 
55 
57 
57 
58 
59 


CHAPTER  II. 

On  the  Problems  and  Methods  of  the  Science 
of  Mythology. 


Three  Schools  of  Mythological  Study 

Myth  and  History 

Heroes  ..... 

True  Problem  of  Mythology 

Our  True  Interest  in  Mythology    . 

Disease  of  Language 

Iroquois  Stories    .... 

Mythology  as  a  Psychological  Problem 
The  Hyponoia  of  Mythology 
Greek  Views  on  the  Meaning  of  Mythology    . 
Gods  as  representing  the  Prominent    Phenomena 
Nature  ........ 

The  Weather  and  the  Seasons        .... 

Saws  about  Weather     ...... 

Historical  Traditions     ...... 


of 


61 
62 

65 
66 
67 
68 
70 
7i 
73 
73 

74 
75 

77 
78 


CONTENTS. 


xxxi 


Riddles  ...... 

Origin  of  Riddles  . 

The  Enigmatic  Language  of  Mythology- 
Gods  with  Intelligible  Names 
Helios  and  Selene  .... 

The  Boat,  and  the  Herds  of  Helios 
Selene  ....••• 

Apollon  and  Artemis    .... 

Gods  with  many  epithets,  Hermes 

Enigmatic  Phase  of  Mythology 

The  Golden  Apples        .... 

Montenegro  Song  of  the  Golden  Apples 
Erzjanian  Riddles  and  Myths 
Mordvinian  Riddles  and  Greek  Mythology 
Mythology,  no  System  .... 

Mythographi  ..... 

The  Brothers  Grimm,  Schwartz,  Castren 

Had  Gods  and  Heroes  a  Common  Origin  ? 

Naturalia  non  sunt  turpia 

Heroes  parallel  with  Gods 

Helena  both  Goddess  and  Heroine 

Dr.  Hahn  on  Marchen  .... 

Beginnings  of  Mythology  Lost 
Schelling       ...... 

Original  Elements  of  Mythology    . 

Male  and  Female  Agents 

Common  Epithets  of  Physical  Agents    . 

What  are  the  Devas  ?   . 

True  Meaning  of  Deva  .... 

Mitra  and  Vanma  .... 

Names  of  the  Devas  in  Modern  Sanskrit,  or  in  Zend 
Complementary  Devas  .... 

Mitra  and  Varuwa  .... 

How  to  compare  Vedic  and  Greek  Gods 
The  brilliant  Haritas     .... 

Agni,  Fire,  Light,  Sun  .... 

Indra    ....... 


Ushas  ....... 

Devas  not  restricted  to  one  single  Phenomenon 
Asvinau 


PAGE 
SO 

80 

85 

88 
88 
89 
90 
9i 
9i 
92 

93 

97 

100 

101 

103 
103 
104 
105 
106 
107 
108 
109 
1 10 
in 
1 12 
116 
116 
117 
118 
120 
121 
122 

125 
128 
129 
130 

I31 
132 
132 
133 


CONTENTS. 


Yaska  ......••• 

Varuwa,  and  the  Moon  ...... 

The  True  Theogony       ...... 

Interference  among  the  Gods         .... 

Human  Feeling  of  Dependence      .... 

Polytheistic  Family-organisation    .... 

Henotheism  ........ 

Henotheism  and  Polytheism  .... 

Solar  and  Meteorological  Interpretation 

Dual  Deities  ....... 

Syncretism  and  Allelotheism         .... 

Anthropomorphic  Development     .... 

Can  this  a  priori  view  of  the  Evolution  of  Mythology  be 
verified  ?....... 

Definition  of  Mythology  not  Exhaustive 
Ancestral  Spirits  ....... 

Abstract  Deities    ....... 

Epithet  Deities      ....... 

Substantive  Deities        ...... 

Different  Interpretations.     Euhemerism 

Appeal  to  History  ...... 

Solarism  everywhere     ...... 

Mythology  of  Savage  Kaces    ..... 

Bastholm      ........ 

Egypt  and  Babylon        ...... 

Peru  and  Mexico  ....... 

North  America      ....... 

Egyptian  Mythology     ...... 

Human  Feelings  with  regard  to  the  Panorama  of  Natur 
Names  of  the  Sun  ...... 

Man's  Dependence  on  the  Sun        .... 

Savages         ........ 

Necessity  of  accounting  for  Mythology  . 

Three  Schools  of  Comparative  Mythology 

The  Genealogical  or  Linguistic  School    . 

The  Analogical  School  ...... 

The  Ethnological  School        ..... 

Comparison  of  Aryan  and  Non-Aryan  Languages  . 
Comparison  of  Aryan  and  Non-Aryan  Mythologies 
De  Brosses  and  Fetishism     ..... 


CONTENTS.  xxxiii 

PAGE 

Totemism     .         .         .         .         .         •         .         .         .198 
Herbert  Spencer's  Ancestor- Worship     ....       202 

Bishop  Callaway 203 

Uncertainty  of  Ethnological  Evidence   ....       205 

Animism       .........       207 

True  Origin  of  Animism        ......        208 

Shamanism  .         .         .         .         .  .         .         .         .210 

Evil  Spirits 211 

The  Pitr/s  or  Ancestral  Spirits,  Pretas  .         .         .         .        213 
Aryan    Mythology   explained    by   a    Comparison   with 

Semitic  Mythology 213 

Dionysos  and  Semele     .         .         .         .         .         .         .217 

Uncertain  Character  of  Ethnological  Evidence        .         .       219 

Tapas 221 

Tapasvin .         .       223 

Seeing  Visions       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .224 

Prof.  Oldenberg  on  Hindu  Sacrifices      .         .         .         .225 

The  Diksha 227 

Pancake  Tossing   .         .         .  .         .         •         •         .228 

Cruel  Kite 230 

The  Agriology  of  the  Future 231 


CHAPTER  III. 


The  Analogical  School  of  the  Science  of  Mythology. 


Analogies  between  Aryan  and  Non- Aryan  Mythologies 
Mordvinian  Mythology . 
Mordvinian  Gods  Solar. 
Erzjanes  and  Mokshanes 
Solar  Character  of  their  Religion 
The  Mother  of  Wheat  . 
Friday  as  a  Holy-day     . 
Earth,  the  Wife  of  the  Sun 
Their  Family 
God  of  Fire,  the  First  Son 
The  other  Sons 
Good  and  Evil  Spirits   . 
Vediava  and  the  Egg     . 
VOL.  I. 


234 

235 
235 
236 
236 
237 
237 
237 
238 
238 

239 
240 
242 


XXXIV 


CONTENTS. 


Pourgas  and  Syria va 

244 

Kardan-siarhka 

245 

Syria,  the  Dawn   . 

246 

Mordvinian  Philosophy  and  '. 

Religion     . 

248 

Chaitan  or  Satan  . 

250 

Creation  of  the  World  . 

250 

Creation  of  Man     . 

252 

Foreign  Influences 

255 

Finnish  Mythology 

256 

Castren 

258 

Jumala 

259 

Num     .... 

260 

Ukko    .... 

262 

Vanna-issa 

263 

Minor  Deities 

263 

Children  of  Sun,  Moon,  &c. 

266 

Eclipses  of  Moon  . 

267 

Koi  (Koit),  the  Dawn   . 

267 

Luonnotar     . 

268 

Water  Deities 

269 

Earth  Deities 

270 

Haltias 

271 

Abstract  Deities    . 

273 

Subterrestrial  Gods,  and  Anc 

sestral  Spirits 

273 

Castren's  Summing  Up 

.        277 

Castren 

279 

Foreign  Influences 

281 

The  Mundane  Egg 

282 

Physical  Basis  of  the  Ugro-I 

^nnic  Mythologi 

es 

.       283 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Psychological  School  of  Comparative  Mythology. 


Ethno  psychological  Studies  .... 

286 

Dr.  Gruppe  ....... 

288 

Sense  of  Shame     ...... 

289 

Discovery  of  Motives     ..... 

289 

Abstract  Ideas  among  Savages 

291 

CONTENTS. 


xxxv 


CHAPTER  V. 

Phonetics. 
Phonetic  Rules  General  and  Special 
Discovery  of  Phonetic  Rules 
Restricted  Evidence  for  Phonetic  Rules 
Discussions  about  ©«>$•  . 
Comparative  Philology  at  Leipzig  in  1838 
Bopp,  Pott,  Grimm 
Grimm's  Law 

Exceptions  to  Grimm's  Law 
Lottner,  Grassmann 
Verner's  Law 

Threefold  Differentiation  of  Roots 
Change  of  Place    . 
Schleicher's  Ursprache  . 
Dialects  antecedent  to  Classical  Speech 
Aryan  Vowels        .... 
Correspondence  of  Aryan  Vowels  . 
Unchangeability  of  Phonetic  Laws 
Analogy        ..... 
Importance  of  Sanskrit  . 
The  Vedic  Accent 
Weak  and  Strong  Terminations     . 
Explanation  of  the  Ablaut     . 
Weakening  and  Strengthening  of  Base 
True  Value  of  Phonetics 
The  Becoming  of  Letters 
Aryan  Vowels  and  their  Legitimate  Changes 
The  Accent  . 
Ablaut 
Instances 

Assimilation,  J.  Schmidt 
Consonants  . 
Two  Kinds  of  Palatals  . 
Two  Kinds  of  Gutturals 
Application  of  Phonetic  Rules  to  Proper  Names 
Local  Names  ..... 

Loss  of  Meaning  entails  Change  of  Form 
Christian  Names  ..... 
Proper  Names  in  Greek 


PAGE 
296 
299 
3OI 
302 
302 
3°4 
304 
3°5 
306 

307 
308 

3°9 
310 
3IO 
312 
3l6 

317 
318 
320 
321 
321 

323 
326 

331 

333 
336 
337 
339 
342 
345 
348 
35o 
352 
362 

363 
364 
365 
366 


XXXIV 


CONTENTS. 


Pourgas  and  Syriava 

Kardan-siarhka 

Syria,  the  Dawn   . 

Mordvinian  Philosophy  and  Eeligion 

Chai'tan  or  Satan  . 

Creation  of  the  World 

Creation  of  Man     . 

Foreign  Influences 

Finnish  Mythology 

Castren 

Jumala 

Num     . 

Ukko    . 

Vanna-issa     . 

Minor  Deities 

Children  of  Sun,  Moon,  &c. 

Eclipses  of  Moon  . 

Koi  (Koit),  the  Dawn 

Luonnotar     . 

Water  Deities 

Earth  Deities 

Haltias 

Abstract  Deities    . 

Subterrestrial  Gods,  and  Ancestral  Spirits 

Castren's  Summing  Up 

Castren 

Foreign  Influences 

The  Mundane  Egg 

Physical  Basis  of  the  Ugro-Finnic  Mythologies 


PAGE 

244 

245 
246 

248 
250 
250 
252 

255 
256 
258 

259 
260 
262 
263 

263 
266 
267 
267 
268 
269 
270 
271 
273 
273 
277 

279 

281 
282 
283 


CHAPTEK  IV. 

Psychological  School  of  Comparative  Mythology. 


Ethno-psychological  Studies  . 

286 

Dr.  Gruppe  ...... 

288 

Sense  of  Shame     ..... 

289 

Discovery  of  Motives     .... 

289 

Abstract  Ideas  among  Savages 

291 

CONTENTS. 

XXXV 

CHAPTER  V. 

Phonetics. 

PAGE 

Phonetic  Rules  General  and  Special       . 

296 

Discovery  of  Phonetic  Rules           . 

299 

Restricted  Evidence  for  Phonetic  Rules 

3OI 

Discussions  about  Oeos  ....... 

302 

Comparative  Philology  at  Leipzig  in  1838 

302 

Bopp,  Pott,  Grimm 

3°4 

Grimm's  Law        ........ 

3°4 

Exceptions  to  Grimm's  Law  ...... 

3°5 

Lottner,  Grassmann      ....... 

306 

Verner's  Law         .         .         . 

3°7 

Threefold  Differentiation  of  Roots  . 

308 

Change  of  Place    ........ 

3°9 

Schleicher's  Ursprache  ....... 

310 

Dialects  antecedent  to  Classical  Speech  .         .          .         . 

310 

Aryan  Vowels        ....... 

312 

Correspondence  of  Aryan  Vowels  . 

316 

Unchangeability  of  Phonetic  Laws 

3i7 

Analogy        ........ 

3i8 

Importance  of  Sanskrit  ...... 

320 

The  Veclic  Accent          ...... 

321 

Weak  and  Strong  Terminations     .... 

321 

Explanation  of  the  Ablaut     ..... 

323 

Weakening  and  Strengthening  of  Base  . 

326 

True  Value  of  Phonetics        ..... 

33i 

The  Becoming  of  Letters        ..... 

333 

Aryan  Vowels  and  their  Legitimate  Changes 

336 

The  Accent 

337 

Ablaut          ........ 

339 

Instances      ........ 

342 

Assimilation,  J.  Schmidt       ..... 

345 

Consonants  ........ 

343 

Two  Kinds  of  Palatals 

35o 

Two  Kinds  of  Gutturals         ..... 

352 

Application  of  Phonetic  Rules  to  Proper  Names     . 

362 

Local  Names          ....... 

363 

Loss  of  Meaning  entails  Change  of  Form 

364 

Christian  Names  ....... 

•       365 

Proper  Names  in  Greek         ..... 

.       366 

xxxvi                                         CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Proper  Names  of  Gods  and  Heroes         .         .          .                 367 

Dialectic  Varieties  of  Proper  Names 

368 

New  Etymologies  by  Prof.  Bechtel.     Dionys 

3S 

372 

Kerberos       ....... 

374 

5arvara 

375 

Zeus      ..... 

375 

Eos  =  Ushas 

. 

376 

Dioskouroi  =  Divas  putrasa/i 

376 

Trito  and  Tritogeneia    . 

. 

376 

Helios,  Mene,  and  Hestia 

377 

Erinys  =  Sarawyu . 

. 

377 

Helios  .... 

. 

•       378 

Athene 

. 

373 

Poseidon 

. 

379 

Hermes         .... 

380 

Here     .... 

. 

380 

Here  and  Svara     . 

. 

382 

Phoibos 

383 

Apollon 

384 

Ares      .... 

385 

Artemis 

385 

Aphrodite 

. 

•       385 

Anomalous  Words  of  a  more  Ancient  Stratu] 

n 

388 

Words  with  different  Etymologies 

392 

Prapides        ...... 

392 

Analogy  and  its  Limits 

394 

Loss  of  Letters      ..... 

396 

Freedom  in  analysing  Mythological  Names 

397 

Local  Influence      ..... 

397 

Dialectic  Varieties  of  Mythological  Names 

399 

Aspirates,  Sonant  and  Surd  . 

401 

Mythological  Names,  Prehistoric   . 

403 

Daphne         ..... 

403 

Athene           .          .          . 

405 

Evidence  necessarily  limited 

409 

Gawapai/ia     ...... 

410 

Briseis           ...... 

4i3 

Night  and  Clouds  ..... 

4i5 

Varuwa          ...... 

416 

Orthros          ...... 

42 1 

Recapitulation 

. 

425 

CONTRIBUTIONS 


SCIENCE    OF    MYTHOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

RETROSPECT. 
The  Beginnings  of  Comparative  Mythology. 

It  may  be  asked  why  for  so  many  years,  during 
which  ever  so  many  books  and  articles  have  been 
published  expressing  undisguised  contempt  for 
Comparative  Mythology,  as  understood  by  Sans- 
krit, and  more  particularly  by  Vedic  scholars,  and 
conveying  the  strongest  condemnation  of  all 
the  etymologies  and  mythological  equations  which 
had  been  proposed  by  myself  and  other  compara- 
tive philologists,  I  should  have  remained  silent 
and  allowed  the  clamour  to  grow  stronger  and 
stronger. 

All  I  can  answer  is,  that  for  years  I  have  been 
very  busy  with  work  to  which  I  felt  in  honour 
pledged.  But  I  must  confess  also,  though  it  may 
seem  very  wrong,  that  I  could  not  help  watching 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  enjoying  the  hubbub  all 
around,  the  shouts  of  defiance  and  the  paeans 
of  victory  raised   by  the    attacking    forces,  feeling 

VOL.  I.  B 


2        BEGINNINGS    OF    COMPARATIVE    MYTHOLOGY,      [chap. 

perfectly  safe  all  the  time  in  my  fortress,  and  not  at 
all  inclined  for  a  sortie.  It  was  really  amusing  to 
see  bow  many  of  the  shots  aimed  at  the  good  vessel 
of  Comparative  Mythology  fell  right  and  left, 
because  the  hostile  crew  had  not  even  ascertained 
my  true  position,  had  misunderstood  my  course,  and 
had  thought  me  anxious  to  defend  points  which  lay 
completely  outside  the  sphere  of  my  own  operations. 
Nay,  it  sometimes  happened  that  shots  were  fired 
at  my  vessel  by  a  crew  bent  on  exactly  the  same 
object  as  myself,  by  men  who  imagined  that  I  stood 
in  their  way,  while  I  was  really  as  helpful  to  them 
as  they  were  to  me.  I  feel  to-day  the  same  unshaken 
confidence  in  Comparative  Mythology  which  I  felt 
when,  as  a  student  at  Berlin  in  1844,  I  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  listening  to  the  lectures  of  Bopp  and 
Schelling,  and  when  afterwards,  at  Paris,  I  was 
allowed  to  attend  the  brilliant  Cours  of  Eug.  Burnouf 
at  the  College  de  France,  and  to  watch  the  ingenious 
combinations  by  which  that  eminent  scholar  arrived 
at  his  marvellous  discoveries  in  comparing  the  myths 
of  the  Big-veda  with  those  of  the  Avesta,  showing 
by  irresistible  arguments  the  transition  of  mytho- 
logical characters  in  these  two  sacred  books  into  the 
epic  and  pseudo-historical  figures  of  the  Shahnameh. 
Whatever  may  have  been  said  against  the  process 
by  which  in  other  countries  gods  were  changed  into 
heroes,  the  equivalence  of  Vedic  and  Avestic  names 
with  those  of  the  heroes  of  the  Shahnameh,  of 
Yama  and  Yima-Kshaeta  with  Jamshid,  of  Traitana 
and  Thraetaona  with  Feridun,  of  KWsasva  with 
Keresaspa  and  Gershasb,  is  as  safe  now  as  it  was 
when  it  was  first  proclaimed  by  Burnouf  in  his 
lectures  at  the  College  de  France. 


i]  DAPHNE    AND    PHOIBOS.  3 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  &c. 

I  have  been  told,  both  in  public  and  in  private, 
that  it  was  hardly  civil  to  leave  the  criticisms  of 
such  men  as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  and  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang  unnoticed  and  unanswered.  My  own  feeling, 
however,  has  always  been  that  more  harm  than 
good  is  done  by  personal  controversy.  Some  of 
the  opinions  put  forward  by  my  critics  have  been 
discussed  by  me  again  and  again  ;  only  that,  as 
in  many  cases  they  had  been  put  forward  by 
other  philosophers  long  ago,  I  preferred  to  treat 
them  impersonally  and  without  special  reference 
to  their  latest  or  loudest  advocates.  I  must 
confess  also  that  I  felt  considerable  difficulty 
how  to  deal  with  some  of  their  criticisms,  or 
rather  witticisms,  without  seeming  either  harsh  or 
discourteous.  I  have  always  admired  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  as  a  hard  worker  and  as  a  hard  thinker, 
I  admire  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  as  a  charming  poet 
and  brilliant  writer.  But  what  could  I  say  if 
the  former  told  me  that  '  the  initial  step  in  the 
genesis  of  a  solar  myth  would  be  the  existence 
of  human  beings  named  Storm  and  Sunshine.' 
Without  consulting  Prehistoric  Postal  Directories 
I  could  not,  of  course,  prove  a  negative  and 
show  that  in  remote  ages  there  never  lived  a 
Mr.  Sun  and  a  Miss  Dawn,  that  this  Mr.  Sun  never 
persecuted  Miss  Dawn  with  his  attentions,  and 
that  Miss  Dawn  never  fainted  away  or  died  in 
his  embraces,  like  Daphne  in  the  arms  of  Phoibos, 
or  was  changed  into  a  daphne,  a  laurel  tree.  Nor 
did  the  help  offered  by  Mr.  Lang  seem  to  me  much 
more  valuable   for  solving  our  difficulties.     Every- 

B  2 


4  DAPHNE    AND    PHOIBOS.  [chap. 

body  knows  that  there  is  hardly  a  country  where 
the  belief  of  human  beings  being  changed  into 
stones,  flowers,  or  trees,  has  not  been  met  with. 
But  how  does  that  help  us  in  accounting  for  the 
special  stories  of  Daphne,  or  Myrrha,  or  Narcissus  ? 
The  question  that  has  to  be  answered  is  not  why 
such  stories  were  told  in  Mangaia,  but  why  the 
story  was  told  in  Greece,  and  why  of  Daphne, 
Myrrha,  or  Narcissus  ? 

Story  of  Tuna  from  Mangaia. 
Mr.  Lang,  as  usual,  has  recourse  to  savages,  most 
useful  when  they  are  really  wanted.  He  quotes  an 
illustration  from  the  South  Pacific  that  Tuna,  the 
chief  of  the  eels,  fell  in  love  with  Ina  and  asked  her 
to  cut  off  his  head.  When  his  head  had  been  cut 
off  and  buried,  two  cocoanut  trees  sprang  up  from 
the  brain  of  Tuna.  How  is  this,  may  I  ask,  to 
account  for  the  story  of  Daphne  1  Everybody 
knows  that  '  stories  of  the  growing  of  plants  out 
of  the  scattered  members  of  heroes  may  be  found 
from  ancient  Egypt  to  the  wigwams  of  the  Algon- 
quins,'  but  these  stories  seem  hardly  applicable  to 
Daphne,  whose  members,  as  far  as  I  know,  were 
never  either  severed  or  scattered. 

I  must  dwell  a  little  longer  on  this  passage  in 
order  to  show  the  real  difference  between  the  ethno- 
logical and  the  philological  schools  of  comparative 
mythology. 

First  of  all,  what  has  to  be  explained  is  not  the 
growing  up  of  a  tree  from  one  or  the  other  member 
of  a  god  or  hero,  but  the  total  change  of  a  human 
being  or  a  heroine  into  a  tree,  and  this  under  a 
certain  provocation.      These   two  classes  of  plant- 


i]  STORY    OF    TUNA    FROM    MANGAIA.  5 

legends  must  be  carefully  kept  apart.  Secondly, 
what  does  it  help  us  to  know  that  people  in  Mangaia 
believed  in  the  change  of  human  beings  into  trees, 
if  we  do  not  know  the  reason  why  ?  This  is  what 
we  want  to  know ;  and  without  it  the  mere  juxta- 
position of  stories  apparently  similar  is  no  more 
than  the  old  trick  of  explaining  ignotum  per 
ignotius.  It  leads  us  to  imagine  that  we  have 
learnt  something,  when  we  really  are  as  ignorant 
as  before. 

If  Mr.  A.  Lang  had  studied  the  Mangaian  dialect, 
or  consulted  scholars  like  the  Rev.  W.  W.  Gill — - 
it  is  from  his  Myths  and  Songs  from  the  South 
Pacific  that  he  quotes  the  story  of  Tuna — he 
wTould  have  seen  that  there  is  no  similarity  what- 
ever between  the  stories  of  Daphne  and  of  Tuna. 
The  Tuna  story  belongs  to  a  very  well-known  class 
of  aetiological  plant-stories,  which  are  meant  to 
explain  a  no  longer  intelligible  name  of  a  plant, 
such  as  Snakeshead,  Stiefmutterchen,  &c.  ;  it  is  in 
fact  a  clear  case  of  what  I  call  disease  of  language, 
cured  by  the  ordinary  nostrum  of  folk-etymology. 
I  have  often  been  in  communication  with  the 
Rev.  W.  W.  Gill  about  these  South  Pacific  myths 
and  their  true  meaning.  The  preface  to  his  collec- 
tion of  Myths  and  Songs  from  the  South  Pacific 
was  written  by  me  in  1876;  and  if  Mr.  A.  Lang 
had  only  read  the  whole  chapter  which  treats  of 
these  Tree-Myths  (p.  77  seq.),  he  would  easily  have 
perceived  the  real  character  of  the  Tuna  story, 
and  would  not  have  placed  it  in  the  same  class 
as  the  Daphne  story ;  he  would  have  found 
that  the  white  kernel  of  the  cocoanut  was,  in 
Mangaia,  called  the  '  brains  of  Tuna,'  a  name,  like 


6  STORY    OF    TUNA    FROM  MANGAIA.  [CHAP. 

many  more  such  names,  which  after  a  time  require 
an  explanation. 

Considering  that  '  cocoanut '  was  used  in  Mangaia 
in  the  sense  of  head  (testa),  the  kernel  or  flesh  of  it 
might  well  be  called  the  brain.  If  then  the  white 
kernel  had  been  called  Tuna's  brain,  we  have  only 
to  remember  that  in  Mangaia  there  are  two  kinds 
of  cocoanut  trees,  and  we  shall  then  have  no  difficulty 
in  understanding  why  these  twin  cocoanut  trees 
were  said  to  have  sprung  from  the  two  halves  of 
Tuna's  brain,  one  being  red  in  stem,  branches,  and 
fruit,  whilst  the  other  was  of  a  deep  green.  Tn 
proof  of  these  trees  being  derived  from  the  head 
of  Tuna,  we  are  told  that  we  have  only  to  break 
the  nut  in  order  to  see  in  the  sprouting  germ  the 
two  eyes  and  the  mouth  of  Tuna,  the  great  eel,  the 
lover  of  Ina.  For  a  full  understanding  of  this  very 
complicated  myth  more  information  has  been  sup- 
plied by  Mr.  Gill.  Ina  means  moon ;  Ina-mae-aitu, 
the  heroine  of  our  story,  means  Ina-who-had-a-divine 
(aitu)  lover,  and  she  was  the  daughter  of  Kui, 
the  blind.  Tuna  means  eel,  and  in  Mangaia  it 
was  unlawful  for  women  to  eat  eels,  so  that 
even  now,  as  Mr.  Gill  informs  me,  his  converts 
turn  away  from  this  fish  with  the  utmost  dis- 
gust. From  other  stories  about  the  origin  of 
cocoanut  trees,  told  in  the  same  island,  it  would 
appear  that  the  sprouts  of  the  cocoanut  were  actually 
called  eels'  heads,  while  the  skulls  of  warriors  were 
called  cocoanuts. 

Taking  all  these  facts  together,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  imagine  how  the  story  of  Tuna's  brain  grew  up  ; 
and  I  am  afraid  we  shall  have  to  confess  that  the 
legend  of  Tuna  throws  but  little  light  on  the  legend 


i]  STORY    OF    TUNA    FROM    MANGAIA.  7 

of  Daphne  or  on  the  etymology  of  her  name.  No 
one  would  have  a  word  to  say  against  the  general 
principle  that  much  that  is  irrational,  absurd,  or 
barbarous  in  the  Veda  is  a  survival  of  a  more 
primitive  mythology  anterior  to  the  Veda.  How 
could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
The  Proper  Use  of  the  Mythology  of  Uncivilised  Races. 

But  when  we  come  to  special  cases  we  must  not 
imagine  that  much  can  be  gained  by  using  such 
general  terms  as  Animism,  Totemism,  Fetishism, 
&c,  as  solvents  of  mythological  problems.  To  my 
mind,  all  such  general  terms,  not  excluding  even 
Darwinism  or  Puseyism,  seem  most  objectionable 
because  they  encourage  vague  thought,  vague  praise, 
or  vague  blame. 

It  is,  for  instance,  quite  possible  to  place  all  wor- 
ship of  animal  gods,  all  avoidance  of  certain  kinds 
of  animal  food,  all  adoption  of  animal  names  as  the 
names  of  men  and  families,  under  the  wide  and 
capacious  cover  of  totemism.  All  theriolatry  would 
thus  be  traced  back  to  totemism.  I  am  not  aware, 
however,  that  any  Egyptologists  have  adopted  such  a 
view  to  account  for  the  animal  forms  of  the  Egyptian 
gods1.  Sanskrit  scholars  would  certainly  hesitate 
before  seeing  in  Indra  a  totem  because  he  is  called 
vrishabha  or  bull,  or  before  attempting  to  explain 
on  this  ground  the  abstaining  from  beef  on  the  part 
of  orthodox  Hindus. 

Dr.  Codrington  on  Totems. 

But  we  see  now  how  even  those  who  are  con- 
sidered as  the  highest  authorities  on  the  myths  and 
customs  of  savage  races,  protest  against  the  importa- 

1  See  Maspero,  Dawn  of  Civilisation,  p.  103. 


8  DK.    CODRINGTON    ON    TOTEMS.  [chap. 

tion  of  totemism  into  their  special  fields  of  study. 
Where  are  the  totems  ?  Dr.  Codrington  asks  (p.  32). 
In  the  Polynesian  islands,  as  he  has  shown,  each 
kema  (kindred)  has  its  buto  or  abomination,  which 
its  members  must  not  approach,  behold,  or  eat.  In 
one  case,  but  in  one  case  only,  this  buto  has  the 
same  name  as  the  kema,  so  that  the  kakau  clan 
must  not  eat  the  kakau  crab.  Members  of  another 
kema  however,  the  Manukama,  are  at  liberty  to 
eat  the  bird  from  which  they  derive  their  name, 
and  possibly  their  descent.  Dr.  Codrington  asks 
whether  it  would  be  right  to  use  such  cases  as 
proving  that  totemism  existed  among  Polynesians 
and  Melanesians ;  and  he  shows  in  how  many  different 
ways  their  customs  can  be  explained,  and  have  been 
explained,  by  the  natives  themselves  1.  He  points 
out  that  the  thing  which  it  is  abominable  to  eat 
is  never  believed  to  be  the  ancestor,  certainly  never 
the  eponymous  ancestor  of  the  clan.  In  fact 
Dr.  Codrington  concludes  that  these  butos  may 
indeed  throw  light  upon  the  origin  of  totems  else- 
where, but  can  hardly  give  a  home  to  totems  in  the 
Solomon  Islands.  He  quotes  a  case,  when  a  man 
who  recently  died  declared  that  after  his  death  he 
would  be  in  the  banana,  and  when  in  consequence, 
the  banana  became  abomination  (buto),  was  never 
eaten,  and  would  probably  in  time  become  an 
ancestor. 

Professor  Hopkins,  who  cannot  be  suspected  of 
any  prejudice  against  agriological  studies,  and  who 
is  well  acquainted  with  the  totems  of  the  Red 
Indians,  protests  against  the  promiscuous  use  of  this 

1  The  Melanesians,  p.  32. 


i]  DK.    CODRINGTON    ON    TOTEMS.  9 

mythological  solvent,  even  in  the  hands  of  a  scholar 
such  as  Professor  Oldenberg.  '  Our  learned  author,' 
he  writes  \  '  who  is  perhaps  too  well  read  in  modern 
anthropology,  seems  to  give  the  absolute  dictum 
that  animal  names  of  persons  and  clans  imply  totem- 
ism.  This  is  no  longer  a  new  theory.  On  the  con- 
trary, taken  in  so  universal  an  application,  it  is  a 
theory  already  on  the  wane,  and  it  seems  to  us  inju- 
dicious to  apply  it  at  random  in  the  Rig-veda.  As 
a  means  of  explanation  it  requires  great  circumspec- 
tion, as  is  evinced  by  the  practice  of  the  American 
Indians,  among  whom  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
animal  names  not  of  totemistic  origin  are  given, 
although  many  of  the  tribes  do  have  totem-names.' 

This  shows  how  careful  we  ought  to  be  before 
we  generalise  the  meaning  of  totemism,  and  try  to 
explain  by  it  anything  that  seems  like  it,  whether 
in  the  metaphorical  language  of  the  Veda,  the 
theriolatry  of  ancient  Egypt,  or  the  modern  belief 
in  butos  in  the  Solomon  Islands. 

That  mythologies,  even  those  of  Greeks  and 
Romans,  may  contain  survivals  or  memories  of  a  pre- 
vious state  of  savagery  had  been  observed  by  Vico, 
Fontenelle,  and  other  philosophers,  long  before  our 
own  time.  As  a  general  truth  no  one  doubts  that  men 
must  have  been  children,  and  that  civilised  people 
must  once  have  been  uncivilised.  The  question 
which  we  should  like  to  ask  is,  Which  are  the 
thoughts  and  words  in  the  Veda  that  remain  un- 
intelligible  unless  they  are  accepted  as  survivals 
from  the  very  infancy  of  the  human  race,  from  the 
thoughts    of    what    is    called    primitive    humanity, 

1  American  Orient.  Soc.  Proceedings,  December,  1894,  p.  cliv. 


IO  DR.    CODEINGTON    ON    TOTEMS.  [CHAP. 

thoughts  which  we  are  asked  to  study  in  the  con- 
versation of  uncivilised  races  of  the  present  day. 
Let  us  have  these  cases  one  by  one,  and  we  may 
then  arrive  at  something  tangible  and  useful.  It  is 
easy  to  say  that,  because  some  savage  races  have  no 
numerals  beyond  three  or  four,  therefore  the  Aryas 
too  had  originally  no  more  than  three  or  four 
numerals.  We  cannot  prove  that  it  was  not  so, 
but  what  can  be  gained  by  such  possibilities  ?  We 
might  say  that  the  nudity  of  the  statues  of  some 
of  the  Greek  gods  is  a  survival  of  the  nudity  of  the 
Andaman  islanders.  But  we  ought  not  to  forget 
that  the  Greek  Graces  were  draped  before  they 
were  represented  as  naked.  History,  in  these  ques- 
tions, has  at  least  as  much  right  as  evolution  with 
its  '  imperceptible  degrees.'  In  India  we  know 
nothing  older  than  the  thoughts  and  words  of  the 
Veda,  we  do  not  know  the  savage  ancestors  of 
the  Vedic  poets,  though  no  one  would  ever  deny 
their  potential  existence.  No  one  has  ever  repre- 
sented the  Vedic  Rishis  as  coming  fresh  from  the 
hands  of  their  Maker,  still  less  as  the  missing  link 
between  beast  and  man.  There  are  hundreds  of 
rings  within  rings,  as  I  have  often  said,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Veda,  and  the  same  applies,  of  course, 
to  its  mythology.  If  you  scratch  the  Rishi,  you 
may  find  the  savage,  but  scratching  the  Rishi  is 
a  difficult  process  ;  and  it  certainly  requires  some 
knowledge  of  Sanskrit  Grammar,  nay,  even  of  pho- 
netic laws,  to  prevent  us  from  mistaking,  as  some 
have  done,  Surya,  fern.,  for  Suryas,  masc,  as  if  Luna 
for  Lunus.  The  modern  Mincoupie  also,  if  scratched, 
might  reveal  the  really  primitive  savage  ;  but  here, 
too,  the  process  of  scratching  is  by  no  means  easy, 


i]  DR.    CODRINGTON    ON    TOTEMS.  IT 

and  even  then  the  skinned  Mincoupie,  though  in 
some  respects  like  the  skinned  Rishi,  might  turn 
out  very  different  from  his  Indian  brother.  I  have 
not  a  word  to  say  against  our  cross-examining 
savages,  though  they  are  apt  to  say  and  to  do 
everything  which  they  are  required  to  say  and  to  do. 
But  I  cannot  understand  why  Mr.  Andrew  Lang 
should  be  so  anxious  to  represent  me  as  his  adver- 
sary or  himself  as  my  adversary.  I  am  not  his 
adversary  ;  he  says  himself  that  I  have  never  even 
quoted  his  name  or  entered  on  any  personal  contro- 
versy with  him.  Nor  have  other  ethnologists  looked 
upon  me  as  their  adversary.  I  have  had  the  honour 
of  being  elected  President  of  the  Ethnological  Sec- 
tion of  the  British  Association  in  189 1.  I  had  done 
some  work,  little  as  it  may  seem  to  Mr.  A.  Lang, 
in  comparing  savage  traditions  with  those  of  Greeks 
and  Komans  and  Hindus.  But  this  was  in  the 
early  days  of  Comparative  Mythology,  and  long  before 
Mr.  A.  Lang  had  joined  our  army.  If  afterwards  I 
gave  up  this  kind  of  work,  it  was  simply  because 
I  saw  that  others,  by  their  scholarlike  knowledge  of 
the  languages,  were  far  better  qualified  for  it.  But 
what  has  all  this  to  do  with  Comparative  Mythology 
as  studied  by  Benfey,  Pott,  Kuhn,  Mannhardt,  Grass- 
mann,  Breal,  Darmesteter,  Osthoff,  Koscher,  Mehlis, 
Meyer,  Decharme,  Victor  Henry,  Barth,  v.  Schroeder, 
Bloomfield,  Hopkins,  Fay,  and  many  more  ?  Surely 
whatever  we  may  think  of  the  mythology  of  vanished 
or  surviving  savages,  there  is  plenty  of  mythology 
that  has  sprung  up  since  the  Aryas  ceased  to  be 
savages,  just  as  there  are  plenty  of  words  in  Sanskrit 
and  in  the  Bantu  languages  which  were  formed  from 
time  to  time  from  roots,  and  not  from  onomatopoeia. 


12  DR.    CODRINGTON    ON    TOTEMS.  [chap. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  words  for  cuckoo  and  dog 
may  be  the  same  in  India  and  in  Central  Africa, 
but  hardly  the  words  for  sky,  sun,  and  moon.  Now, 
as  little  as  the  Bantu  languages  will  help  us  to 
understand  the  formation  of  words  like  coelum,  sol, 
or  luna,  are  the  present  myths  and  customs  of  the 
Iroquois  or  Kafirs  likely  to  help  us  to  a  thorough 
understanding  of  Zeus,  Athene,  or  Aphrodite.  Let 
Mr.  A.  Lang  discover  as  many  general  parallels 
as  possible  between  the  mythology  of  the  Maoris 
and  of  the  Greeks.  They  will  all  be  welcome,  and 
to  none  more  than  to  myself;  but  when  Sanskrit 
scholars  discuss  the  etymology  of  Vedic  names,  or 
Greek  scholars  the  etymology  of  Greek  names,  he 
may,  indeed,  if  he  likes,  stand  at  a  distance  and 
smile  at  the  differences  of  opinion  between  them. 
It  is  quite  true  that  they  differ  on  certain  points, 
but  he  ought  not  to  forget  that  they  differ  no  more 
than  others  who  cultivate  any  progressive  science, 
no  more  than  Political  Economists,  Egyptologists, 
Electricians,  Theologians,  nay  even  Anthropologists  *. 
In  several  cases,  however,  these  differences  which 
disturb  Mr.  Lang,  are  simply  due  to  the  fact  that 
people  so  often  use  the  same  words,  but  in  different 
senses. 

The  Meaning  of  '  Primitive.' 
When  I  speak  of  the  Vedic  Rishis  as  primitive, 
I  do  not  mean  what  Mr.  A.  Lang  means  when 
he  calls  his  savages  primitive.  His  savages  belong 
to  the  nineteenth  century  A.  d.,  mine,  it  may  be,  to 
the  nineteenth  century  b.  c.     But  for  all  that  if  he 

1  Gifford  Lectures,  iii,  p.   413,   Appendix  v,  The  Untrust- 
worthiness  of  Anthropological  Evidence. 


i]  THE    MEANING    OF    '  PRIMITIVE.'  13 

thinks  that  the  language,  the  customs,  and  myths 
of  the  Fijians  are  more  ancient  than  those  of  the 
Vedic  Rishis,  I  have  nothing  to  say  against  it.  We 
comparative  mythologists  begin  with  whatever  of 
real  mythology  we  find  among  the  Aryan  nations, 
and  try  to  trace  it  back  to  its  origin,  but  we  never 
say  that  this  origin  carries  us  down  to  the  beginning 
of  the  world  or  to  the  seventh  day  of  creation.  All 
that  we  gladly  leave  to  the  Agriologists.  What  we 
call  primitive  in  Aryan  mythology  is,  as  I  have 
often  tried  to  explain,  what  is  oldest  within  our 
reach  ;  it  is  little  more  than  what  might  be  called 
natural,  rational,  or  intelligible,  something,  in  fact, 
that  had  its  beginning  in  itself,  and  does  not  require 
any  further  antecedents. 

We  assert  nothing  about  chronology,  and  if  the 
students  of  savage  ethnology  were  to  postulate 
millions  and  millions  of  years  before  the  formation 
of  the  word  Dyaus  or  Zeus,  we  should  gladly  grant 
them.  But  most  of  the  instances  that  have  been 
produced  to  show  that  savages  have  older  gods 
than  Zeus,  and  that  Vedic  myths  are  merely  sur- 
vivals of  savage  myths,  have  hitherto  failed  to 
convince  any  real  scholars. 

Kronos  and  his  Children. 

It  has  often  been  quoted,  for  instance,  as  a  great 
triumph  of  Agriology  that  it  can  account  for  the 
swallowing  of  his  children  by  Kronos  by  a  refer- 
ence to  the  existence  of  cannibalism  among  the 
distant  ancestors  of  the  Aryan  race.  I  do  not 
see  how  this  can  help  us  much.  Can  we  possibly 
cut  the  myth  of  Kronos  in  pieces  and  separate 
the    swallowing   from    its    after-effects?      And    for 


14  KRONOS    AND    HIS    CHILDREN.  [chap. 

these,  the  bringing  up  of  the  stone  and  of  his 
children,  even  the  most  distant  periods  of  savagery 
would  hardly  offer  any  satisfactory  analogy.  I  do 
not  say  that  we  comparative  mythologists  can 
throw  much  light  on  the  myth  of  Kronos  ;  still,  if 
we  remember  the  different  meanings  of  swallowing, 
we  may  possibly  be  able  to  account  not  only  for  the 
swallowing  of  all  the  celestial  gods  by  Kronos,  but 
likewise  for  their  being  brought  up  again  the  next 
morning.  Suppose  we  could  discover  in  Kronos 
some  meaning  like  Evening  or  Winter,  would  not 
the  whole  Kronos  myth,  including  the  return  of  the 
gods,  be  solved  at  once  ?  I  quite  admit  that  hitherto 
etymology  has  not  helped  us  much  to  an  interpre- 
tation of  Kronos.  There  are  certain  deep  strata  of 
language  which  even  etymology  cannot  reach,  at 
least  not  with  its  present  tools.  But  does  it  not 
show  the  inrportance  of  etymology  if,  as  in  this 
case,  our  acceptance  of  the  original  meaning  of  a 
myth  would  stand  or  fall  at  once  with  the  etymo- 
logy of  a  proper  name,  the  name  of  Kronos  ? 

Suppose  Kronos  could  be  proved,  as  Welcker  tried 
to  show,  to  stand  for  Chronos,  '  time,'  or  suppose 
that  the  word  for  'time' meant  originally  'night' 
(compare  such  words  as  kshapa,  kshana,  &c),  would 
not  the  whole  myth  of  Kronos,  both  in  his  swallowing 
the  bright  gods  and  giving  them  up  again,  become 
transparent  ?  I  do  not  commit  myself  to  this  ex- 
planation, but  may  it  not  stand  by  the  side  of  the 
cannibal  theory?     See  hereafter,  p.  167. 

Fontenelle. 

I  do  not  object  to  ethnological  experiments  being 
made  for  the  elucidation  of  mythology,  I  only  wish 
we  had  been  more  successful  in  them.     But  in  his 


i]  FONTENELLE.  15 

skilful  unravellings  of  the  old  tangle  of  mythology, 
even  Mr.  A.  Lang1  has  to  admit,  that  we  have  not 
got  much  beyond  Fontenelle,  when  he  wrote  in  the 
last  century : — 

'  Pourquoi  les  legendes  des  homines,  des  betes,  et 
des  dieux  sont  elles  a  tel  point  incroyables  et  revol- 
tantes  \ ....  La  reponse  est  que  les  premiers  homines 
etaient  dans  un  etat  de  sauvagerie  et  d'ignorance 
presque  inconcevable  et  que  les  Grecs  ont  re9u  leurs 
mythes  en  heritage  de  gens  qui  se  trouvaient  en  un 
pareil  etat  de  sauvagerie.  Regardez  les  Cafirs  et  les 
Iroquois  si  vous  desirez  savoir  a  quoi  ressemblaient 
les  premiers  hommes  ' — 

and  then  follows  the  very  important  caution — 

'  et  souvenez-vous  que  les  Iroquois  memes  et  les 
Cafirs  sont  des  gens  qui  ont  derriere  eux  un  long 
passe.' 

There  is  not  a  word  of  Fontenelle's  to  which 
I  should  not  gladly  subscribe,  there  is  no  advice 
of  his  which  I  have  not  tried  to  follow  in  all  my 
attempts  to  explain  the  myths  of  India  and  Greece 
by  an  occasional  reference  to  Polynesian  or  African 
folklore.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  lay  down  a  general 
principle,  another  to  carry  it  out  in  detail.  To  do 
that  required,  as  I  have  always  said,  not  only  the 
pleasant  reading  of  the  works  of  men  like  Callaway, 
Hahn,  Gill,  and  Codrington,  or  of  such  excellent 
digests  as  Bastholm,  Waitz,  and  Tylor  have  placed 
before  us  ;  it  required  an  independent  study  of  the 
languages,  and  for  that  I  had  neither  time  nor 
strength  after  what  I  felt  bound  in  honesty  to  do 
for  Sanskrit,  Greek,  and  Latin. 

Fontenelle  was  certainly  a  man  of  uncommon  com- 

1  A.  Lang,  Mythes,  Cultes  et  Keligion,  p.  618. 


l6  FONTENELLE.  [chap. 

mon  sense,  but  something  more  than  common  sense 
is  required  for  the  study  of  prehistoric  antiquities. 
We  know,  or  ought  to  know  by  this  time,  a  little 
more  than  Fontenelle  and  his  contemporaries.  We 
know  that  no  literary  work,  neither  the  Old  Testa- 
ment nor  the  Veda,  can  represent  to  us  the  very 
beginnings  of  religious  or  mythological  thought. 
Neither  the  Old  Testament  nor  the  Veda  is  so  old 
as  was  once  supposed,  neither  of  them  lays  claim  to 
represent  to  us  '  humanity  as  emerging  slowly  from 
the  depths  of  an  animal  brutality.'  The  savage 
does  not  stand  on  the  heels  of  the  Vedic  Rishis. 
Whatever  date  we  may  assign  to  the  earliest  of 
the  Vedic  hymns,  there  are  at  least  two  long 
periods  between  the  Veda  and  downright  savagery 
and  cannibalism.  The  Vedic  period  presupposes  the 
Indo-Iranic,  the  Indo-Iranic  the  Pan-Aryan  period. 
These  periods,  though  commonly  called  prehistoric, 
are  perfectly  historical  in  one  sense,  inasmuch  as 
they  have  left  us  in  their  language  historical  docu- 
ments of  perfect  authenticity.  We  know,  for 
instance,  that  during  the  Indo-Iranic  period  the 
worship  of  so  peculiar  a  deity  as  Soma  had  been 
fully  established,  we  know,  to  mention  nothing  else, 
that  during  the  Pan-Aryan  period  the  numerals 
from  i  to  ioo  had  been  formed  and  accepted.  If 
then  we  are  told,  on  the  other  side,  that  there  are 
even  now  savage  tribes  that  cannot  count  beyond 
three  or  four  (though  I  doubt  it),  it  can  easily  be 
seen  that  the  savage  is  not  so  very  close  on  the 
heels  even  of  the  original  Aryas,  and  twice  removed 
even  from  a  Vedic  age.  Yet  although  those  who 
follow  Darwin  know  that  homo  sapiens  forms  but 
one  species,  and  that  the  Andaman  race  is  as  old 


i]  FONTENELLE.  1 7 

as  any  other,  Fontenelle,  no  doubt,  was  right  when 
he  maintained  that  civilised  races  had  once  been 
uncivilised,  and  that  the  customs  and  myths  of 
uncivilised  races  may  therefore  throw  light  on 
those  of  civilised  nations.  Only  let  us  remember 
the  periods  of  evolution  that  intervene  between  the 
Veddah  and  the  Veda,  and  let  us  not  attempt  to 
identify  what  was  the  work  of  the  Pan-Aryan,  the 
Indo-Iranic,  and  the  Vedic  periods  with  the  chaotic 
savagery  that  lies  beyond.  If  we  hesitate  before 
identifying  VaiTma  and  Ouranos,  let  us  not  rush 
at  the  conclusion  that  every  tribe  which  has  an 
animal  name  derived  that  name  from  a  Totem. 


Comparative  Mythology  founded  on  a  Comparison  of 
Names. 

If,  therefore,  I  declined  to  be  drawn  into  any 
personal  controversy  with  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  or 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  it  was  not  from  any  lack 
of  respect — far  from  it ;  it  was  because  I  looked 
upon  them  both  as  protagonists  in  their  own  spheres 
of  work,  but  not  as  antagonists  of  mine.  I  felt 
perfectly  confident  that  the  principles  of  linguistic 
mythology  were  safe  and  sound,  and  required  no 
defence  against  ephemeral  criticism,  or  what  has  been 
spoken  of  as  journalistic  mist1.  What  Dr.  Osthoff 
declared  in  1869,  '  Nominum  congruentiam  certis- 
simum  fundamentum  esse,  quo  omnis  mythologia 
comparata  niti  debeat '  (Quaestiones  Mythologicae), 
I  hold  to  be  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  then  ;  and  it 
is  well    known    that    in   his   last,    nay  posthumous 


1  Athenaeum,  April  4,  1896. 
VOL.  I.  C 


l8  COMPARATIVE    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

essay,  Mannhardt,  no  mean  authority,  returned  to 
the  same  conviction1. 

I  knew  then,  and  I  know  now,  that  Comparative 
Mythology,  whatever  its  youthful  errors  might  have 
been,  has  a  future  before  it  that  will  surprise  its 
most  determined  adversaries.  Though  I  had  other 
work  to  do  which  for  many  years  required  the  whole 
of  my  time  and  attention,  my  interest  in  Comparative 
Mythology  has  never  flagged,  and  I  have  followed 
the  labours  of  others  in  this  wide  field  of  research 
with  unabated  sympathy.  So  long  as  linguistic 
Comparative  Mythology  had  the  support  of  all 
really  competent  scholars,  I  mean  of  those  who 
could  read  Sanskrit  and  the  Veda,  I  felt  perfectly 
satisfied.  I  was  not  in  the  least  frightened 
even  by  being  called  '  Athanasius  contra  mundum.' 
I  gladly  accepted  the  omen,  having  always,  like 
Athanasius,  cared  for  the  good  opinion  of  the  electi 
rather  than  of  the  mundus.  But  how,  with  any 
regard  for  facts,  it  could  be  said  that  after  the  death 
of  many  of  my  former  fellow-workers,  I  stood  now 
quite  alone,  has  been  a  puzzle  to  me.  Of  the  long 
list  of  names  given  on  page  1 1 ,  many,  no  doubt,  are 
gone,  but  many  remain,  and  I  am  not  yet  reduced 
to  the  same  straits  as  poor  Athanasius.  Even  when 
I  was  told  that  the  number  of  the  adversaries  of 
Comparative  Mythology  was  Legion,  my  heart  did 
not  fail  me,  for  I  trusted  that  in  time  even  Legion 
would  be  sitting  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind.  Nor 
have  I  ever  been  able  to  extract  from  my  critics  the 
title  of  a  single  book  in  which  my  etymologies  and 

1  See  Mannhardt,  Mythologische  Forschungen,  1884,  pp.  86, 
113. 


l]  GERVINUS    AND    HAUPT.  1 9 

my  mythological  equations  had  been  seriously  criti- 
cised by  real  scholars.  Mistakes,  no  doubt,  were 
made  by  Bopp  and  Grimm  and  Pott,  but  Compara- 
tive Philology  has  survived  nevertheless,  and  should 
we  have  had  Comparative  Philology  without  their 
mistakes  ?  Mistakes  have  likewise  been  made  by 
Kuhn,  by  myself,  and  by  some  of  my  pupils  and 
followers,  but  these  mistakes,  committed  in  the  first 
enthusiasm  of  unexpected  discoveries,  have  been 
corrected,  while  the  broad  outlines  of  Comparative 
Mythology  have  remained  intact.  And  is  it  quite 
fair,  I  may  ask,  when  any  German  professor  differs 
from  me,  to  conclude  at  once  that  I  am  wrong  and 
he  is  right  ?  All  this  does  very  well  for  journalistic 
purposes,  but  hardly  in  the  pure  and  fresh  air  of 
real  scientific  research.  The  number  of  real  labourers 
has  indeed  been  small,  but  this  was  but  natural, 
for,  as  I  pointed  out  from  the  first,  no  one  could 
possibly  do  any  independent  work,  and  I  should 
add,  no  one  could  form  any  independent  judgment  of 
the  discoveries  made  by  others  in  this  newly-opened 
field  of  linguistic  research  who  was  not  a  Sanskrit, 
nay,  who  was  not  a  Vedic  scholar. 

Gervinus  and  Haupt. 
It  is  extraordinary  how,  beginning  with  Gervinus, 
a  number  of  persons,  more  or  less  distinguished  in 
their  own  special  spheres  of  study,  have  stepped  out 
of  their  proper  sphere  and  boldly,  nay  recklessly, 
pronounced  judgment  on  the  labours  of  men  such  as 
Kuhn,  Benfey,  Pott,  Grassmann,  Darmesteter,  and 
others,  without  possessing  the  slightest  acquaintance 
with  Sanskrit  or  the  Veda,  nay  with  the  mere 
elements  of  Comparative  Philology.    I  doubt  whether 

C  2 


20  GERVINUS    AND    HAUPT.  [chap. 

some  of  them  could  even  have  read  or  understood 
what  they  professed  to  criticise.  Kuhn  might  indeed 
have  proved  an  excellent  critic  of  Gervinus'  History 
of  German  Poetry,  not  Gervinus  of  Kuhn's  Herab- 
kunft  des  Feuers.  Haupt  was  a  great  Latin  scholar, 
and  I  owe  much  to  his  lectures  at  Leipzig,  having 
been  a  member  of  his  Latin  Society.  But  he  was 
no  match  for  Kuhn  on  mythological  questions,  and 
his  famous  saying  that  Comparative  Mythologists 
saw  '  un  dieu  aryen  dans  tout  coq  rouge  et  dans  tout 
bouc  mal  sentant,'  shows  the  weapons  to  which  he 
had  recourse1.  Where  our  critics  have  gone  en- 
tirely wrong  is  by  imagining  that  because  some  of 
the  identifications  of  Greek  and  Sanskrit  names 
of  gods  offended  against  certain  phonetic  rules,  or 
because  different  scholars  differed  from  each  other 
about  the  etymologies  of  the  names  of  gods  and 
heroes,  therefore  the  whole  science  of  Comparative 
Mythology  was  wrecked. 

Controversies. 
When  there  are  two  etymologies  of  mythological 
names  proposed  by  competent  scholars,  it  is  quite 
right  that  the  one  which  satisfies  all  phonetic  rules 
should  have  the  preference.  But  phonetic  rales  are 
not  everything  in  Comparative  Mythology,  and  if 
our  critics  had  studied  more  carefully  the  fates  of 
proper  names  in  all  languages,  but  particularly  in 
Sanskrit,  Greek,  and  Latin,  they  would  not  in  the 
case  of  mythological  names  have  exacted  what  from 

1  J.  van  den  Gheyn,  Essais  de  Mythologie  Comparee,  p.  50. 
I  prefer  to  leave  the  words  in  French.  Those  who  quote  this 
saying,  seem  hardly  to  be  aware  that  it  was  directed,  not 
against  Kuhn,  but  against  Mannhardt. 


i]  CONTROVERSIES.  21 

the  nature  of  the  case  we  have  no  right  to  exact. 
Besides,  if  ever  so  many  mythological  etymologies 
that  have  been  found  fault  with  by  competent  judges, 
were  surrendered,  enough  would  still  remain  to  save 
what  I  consider  the  really  important  outcome  of 
Comparative  Mythology,  namely,  the  recognition — 
(i)  That  the  different  branches  of  the  Aryan 
family  of  speech  possessed  before  their  separation 
not  only  common  words  (jjlvOol),  but  likewise  common 
myths  (ijlvOol)  ; 

(2)  That  what  we  call  the  gods  of  mythology  were 
chiefly  the  agents  supposed  to  exist  behind  the  great 
phenomena  of  nature ; 

(3)  That  the  names  of  some  of  these  gods  and 
heroes,  common  to  some  or  to  all  the  branches  of 
the  Aryan  family  of  speech,  and  therefore  much 
older  than  the  Vedic  or  Homeric  periods,  constitute 
the  most  ancient  and  the  most  important  material 
on  which  students  of  mythology  have  to  work,  and 

(4)  That  the  best  solvent  of  the  old  riddles  of 
mythology  is  to  be  found  in  an  etymological  analysis 
of  the  names  of  gods  and  goddesses,  heroes  and 
heroines. 

Unless  we  hold  that  these  names  were  imposed 
miraculously,  they  must  have  had  a  reasonable  pur- 
pose, and  whenever  we  can  discover  that  reasonable 
purpose,  we  have  come  as  near  the  very  conception 
of  gods  and  goddesses  as  it  is  possible. 

Fermentation  of  Mythology. 

What,  however,  I  consider  as  the  most  important 
outcome  of  Comparative  Mythology  is  the  conviction 
which  it  leaves  in  our  minds  that  the  ancestors  of 
the  Aryan    races  were  not   mere   drivelling  idiots, 


22  FERMENTATION    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

but  that  there  was  a  continuous  development  in  the 
growth  of  the  Aryan  mind  as  in  the  growth  of  the 
surface  of  the  earth.  That  is  what  will  always 
make  the  study  of  mythology  dear  not  only  to  the 
historian  but  to  the  psychologist  also.  It  was 
a  relief  to  know  that  Ammonites  and  Belemnites 
were  not  the  work  of  gnomes  and  sprites,  but  that 
there  was  sense  and  purpose  in  them  as  in  all 
products  of  nature.  It  is  to  me  the  same  relief  to 
know  that  the  gods  of  Greece  and  India  were  not 
mere  devils  or  the  work  of  devils  or  fools,  but  that 
they  also,  even  in  their  greatest  degradation,  had 
a  rational  meaning  and  a  noble  purpose. 

Personally  I  consider  a  comparative  study  of 
Aryan  mythology  as  by  far  the  best  preparation 
for  a  more  comprehensive  study  of  the  mythology 
of  other  nations  and  languages,  whether  civilised  or 
uncivilised,  and  this  for  the  simple  reason  that  we 
possess  in  the  Hymns  of  the  Rig-veda  remnants  of 
a  period  of  mythological  fermentation,  such  as  we 
find  nowhere  else.  What  has  been  so  often  com- 
plained of  the  confusion,  nay  the  contradictions  of 
Vedic  mythology,  seems  to  me  the  most  useful 
feature  of  it,  as  allowing  us  an  insight  into  the  real 
genesis  of  myths.  The  question  whether  most  of 
the  ancient  gods  and  heroes  derived  their  origin 
from  physical  phenomena  has  been  answered  once 
for  all  by  the  Veda,  and  I  do  not  know  of  a  single 
scholar  who,  if  able  to  read  the  Veda,  would  express 
any  doubts  on  this  subject.  On  this  point  also 
I  am  glad  to  have  the  support  of  Osthoff,  who  in 
1869  defended  the  thesis,  'Naturale  uniuscujusque 
mythi  argument um  prius,  caetera  omnia  posteriora 
putanda  sunt.'      Scholars  who  maintain  that  they 


i]  FERMENTATION    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  23 

can  discover  this  previous  fermentation  of  the  mytho- 
logical thought  of  India,  Greece,  Italy,  and  Germany 
among  the  few  remaining  savage  races  of  the  present 
day,  are  mistaken.  From  the  very  nature  of  the 
case,  they  have,  in  studying  the  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  savages,  access  to  the  surface  only,  all 
antecedents,  all  development,  being  lost  to  us  be- 
yond the  hope  of  recovery.  Still  even  thus  they 
may  do  some  very  useful  work,  if  only  they  will  do 
what  Vedic  scholars  have  done,  learn  the  lan.o-uaffes 
still  spoken  by  those  so-called  children  of  nature, 
and  if  they  will  always  remember  what  a  difference 
there  is  between  historical  continuity  and  psycho- 
logical parallelism.  For  all  we  know,  there  may  be 
found  customs  and  myths  in  the  Andaman  Isles  even 
at  the  present  day,  which  underlie  actual  customs 
and  myths  in  the  British  Isles  ;  but  the  intermediate 
links  of  the  chain  are  missing,  and,  when  we  deal 
with  savages  who  have  no  past,  the  motives  or 
secret  springs  of  their  customs  and  beliefs  are 
naturally  beyond  our  reach.  When  we  have  traced 
the  name  of  Zeus  back  to  the  Sanskrit  Dyaus  \  the 
bright  sky,  formed  from  a  root  which  in  all  its 
derivatives  expresses  the  idea  of  brightness,  we  have 
reached,  as  I  hold,  a  stratum  below  which  there  is 
nothing  to  interest  the  student  of  mythology,  how- 
ever interesting  these  lower  strata  of  human  thought 
and  language  may  be  to  the  psychologist  and  the 

1  I  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  say  once  more  that  Dyaus 
is  the  nom.  sing.,  and  Dyu  the  stem.  However,  I  may  repeat 
Muir's  note  (Orig.  S.  T.,  v,  p.  21):  'The  crude  form  of  this 
word  is  Dyu.  I  employ  the  nominative  Dyaus,  from  its  clearer 
resemblance  to  the  Greek  Zeus.  The  genitive  is  Divas.'  More 
on  the  subject  in  my  Sanskrit  Grammar,  ed.  by  Macdonell. 


24  FERMENTATION    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

metaphysician.  We  have  reached  what  I  call  a 
primitive  stratum  of  thought,  and  as  mythologists 
we  require  no  further  antecedents.  But  if  we  are 
told  that  Unkulunkulu  also,  the  name  of  the  supreme 
deity  of  the  Zulus,  meant  the  old-old  one,  or  by  others 
that  it  meant  the  sky,  we  are  helpless  without 
a  knowledge  of  the  Zulu  language  in  its  most 
ancient  form,  and  we  must  wait  till  Kafir  scholars 
have  cleared  up  that  point,  though  even  then  we 
can  hardly  hope  that  the  Unkulunkulu  of  the  Zulus 
will  help  us  to  a  more  profound  understanding  of 
the  Panhellenic  Zeus. 

Study  of  Savage  Tribes. 
Information  is  welcome  to  the  Comparative  Mytho- 
logists from  whatever  quarter  it  may  come,  whether 
from  Hebrew  and  Babylonian,  or  Finnish  and  Esto- 
nian, nay  also  from  African  and  Melanesian  sources; 
for  if  the  light  derived  from  a  study  of  Aryan 
mythology  has  lighted  up  so  many  dark  corners  of 
other  mythologies,  why  should  not  those  mythologies 
in  turn  furnish  a  few  instructive  analogies  to  the 
growth  of  mythology  in  India,  Persia,  Greece,  and 
Germany  ?  I  can  quite  understand  the  strong  pre- 
judice which  scholars  feel  against  the  purely  dilet- 
tante work  of  certain  ethnologists  who  write  about 
the  customs  and  myths  of  people  whose  language 
they  do  not  understand.  Still  I  have  always  stood 
up  for  them,  particularly  for  those  who  when  ex- 
ploring savage  countries  were  not  too  proud  to  learn 
the  spoken  dialects  of  savage  tribes.  It  is  all  the 
more  strange  that  I  should  have  been  sino-led  out 
and  blamed  for  ignoring  or  actually  condemning 
principles  which,  if  I  am  not  quite  mistaken,  I  have 


i]  STUDY    OF    SAVAGE    TRIBES.  25 

really  been  the  first,  or  certainly  one  among  the  first, 
to  inculcate  and  to  defend,  namely  that  a  com- 
parative study  of  languages,  mythologies,  and  religions 
should  not  be  confined  to  those  of  one  family  only, 
the  Aryas,  but  should  include  all  families  of  speech, 
all  races,  the  lowest  as  well  as  the  highest,  and  all 
religions  whether  of  civilised  or  uncivilised  countries, 
all  languages,  whether  written  or  unwritten.  I 
showed  in  some  of  my  earliest  and  now  justly  for- 
gotten essays  \  what  kind  of  advantage  a  study  of 
the  Aryan  languages  could  derive  from  a  comparison 
with  Semitic  and  Turanian  forms  of  speech.  I  tried 
to  show  how  strong  the  analogies  were  between 
Aryan  and  other  myths,  particularly  those  of 
American,  African,  and  Polynesian  races.  My  own 
special  work  has,  no  doubt,  been  chiefly  concentrated 
on  Aryan  mythology  and  religion,  not  however  from 
any  contempt  for  cognate  researches,  but  simply 
because  I  did  not  feel  myself  strong  enough  in 
Semitic,  Ural-Altaic,  or  Polynesian  grammar,  to 
venture  on  independent  explorations  in  those  vast 
spheres  of  language  and  thought.  I  gladly  left  that 
domain  of  our  science  to  men  like  Castren,  Horatio 
Hale,  Callaway,  Hahn,  W.  Gill,  and  others  who  had 
acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  languages  in  which  the 
various  myths  of  savage  races  had  grown  up.  If 
I  ever  expressed  any  misgivings  as  to  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  materials  on  which  we  were 
invited  to  rely,  while  comparing  and  analysing  the 
languages,  the  traditions,  and  legends  of  uncivilised 
races,  this  was  but  natural  on  the  part  of  one  who, 
though  not  quite  ignorant  of  such  classical  languages 

1  Letter  on  the  Turanian  Languages,  1854. 


26  STUDY    OF    SAVAGE    TRIBES.  [chap. 

as  Sanskrit,  Zend,  Greek,  and  Latin,  knew  from  sad 
experience  how  often  he  had  been  misled,  how  often 
he  had  been  mistaken  in  trying  to  interpret  the 
deepest  thoughts  of  Brahmans,  Persians,  Greeks, 
and  Romans  with  reference  to  the  true  character  of 
their  gods  and  heroes,  and  how  often  he  had  failed 
to  discover  the  deepest  sources  of  their  moral  and 
religious  convictions.  Nor  did  I  doubt  so  much  the 
accuracy  of  compilers  as  the  competency  of  the 
actual  observers  on  whose  testimony  ethnologists  had 
to  rely.  The  better  we  become  acquainted  with  the 
traditions  of  so-called  savage  races,  after  their  lan- 
guages have  been  studied  in  a  truly  scholarlike  spirit, 
the  more  do  we  shrink  from  building  any  arguments 
on  the  accounts  of  casual  travellers  or  missionaries. 
But  against  a  comparison  of  mythologies  belonging  to 
races  whose  languages  have  been  carefully  studied, 
such  as  Fins  or  Ests,  Lituanians  or  Lets,  I  have 
never  uttered  a  sing-le  word.  No  one  would  accuse 
a  mineralogist  of  despising  geology  because  he  con- 
lined  his  own  special  work  to  minerals,  or  to  the 
chemistry  of  minerals.  But  I  was  surely  the  last 
person  who  ought  to  have  been  accused  of  hostility 
by  those  who  advocate  a  more  comprehensive  study 
of  humanity,  considering  that  the  leading  principle 
of  my  studies  has  always  been,  '  humani  nihil  a  me 
alienum  puto.' 

My  Defenders. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  have  to  defend  positions 
which  one  never  held  nor  wishes  to  hold,  and  I  am 
therefore  all  the  more  grateful  to  others  who  have 
pointed  out  the  audacious  misrepresentations  of  my 
real  opinion  on  Comparative  Mythology,  and  have 


i]  CANIZZAEO.  27 

reproved   the  flippant  tone    of  some   of  my  eager 
critics. 

Canizzaro. 
To  speak  of  recent  works  only,  Signor  Canizzaro, 
in  his  Genesi  ed   Evoluzione   del   Mito,    1893,  has 
placed  the  real  facts  of  the  case  before  the  public  at 
large.     He  writes  : — 

'  Ma  la  conciliazione,  feconda  di  ottimi  risultati, 
e  desiderata  da  molti  mitografi  non  amanti  di  un 
eccletismo  che  passa  nella  scienza  senza  infamia 
e  senza  lodo  ;  ne  infeudati  d'altro  canto  ad  alcuna 
scuola,  e,  perci6  stesso,  veri  liberi  pensatori  rispetto 
a  tale  problema,  ha  gia  trovato  fra'  tilologi  un  recente 
fautor,  etuttoche  parziale — in  Max  Muller,  che,  con 
vera  serenita  di  spirito,  rompendo  la  cerchia  metal- 
lica  dei  popoli  ariani,  ha  consigliato  ai  suoi  adepti 
di  spaziare  1'  occhio  per  entro  alle  varie  genti  in 
qualsiasi  plaga  del  mondo  esse  si  trovino.  Degli 
avversari  il  Lang  ha  ceduto  le  armi'  (p.  21). 

Mr.  Lang  will  hardly  admit  that  he  has  laid 
down  his  arms. 

As  to  Dr.  Tylor,  I  have  certainly  never  counted 
him  among  my  adversaries,  but  rather  among  my 
friends  and  most  useful  fellow-labourers.  I  believe 
I  was  the  first  to  explain  the  importance  of  Dr. 
Tylor's  works  to  a  larger  public  J .  I  have  always 
felt  most  grateful  for  the  work  which  he  has  done. 
It  was  work  that  had  to  be  done  by  some  one,  but 
for  which  I  felt  that  I  did  not  possess  the  neces- 
sary linguistic  equipment.  Nor  can  I  see  that  our 
opinions  differ  much  on  any  essential  points,  except 
perhaps  in  the  degree  of  confidence  which  we  may 

1  See  my  article  on  Manners  and  Customs,  published  in  the 
Times,  1865. 


28  CANIZZARO.  [chap. 

safely  place  in  the  materials  supplied  by  travellers  and 
missionaries  l.     Conscientious  writers  such  as  Bast- 
holm,  Waitz,  Lippert,  and  others  have  themselves 
been  the  first  to  acknowledge  on  what  broken  reeds 
they   have   often    had  to   rest   in   their  study  and 
analysis  of  the  religious  folklore  of  uncivilised  races. 
There  is,  I  cannot  help  saying  so  again,  but  one  test 
of  real  love  of  truth  in  these  matters,  and  of  a  truly 
scholarlike  spirit,  namely,  a  courageous  attempt  to 
master  the  languages  of  uncivilised  races.     Any  one 
who    has    done  that,  as   Horatio  Hale  pointed  out 
some  years  ago,  deserves  to  be  listened  to.     Those 
who  think  they  can  trust  to  every  statement  which 
seems  to  confirm  their  own  theories,  must  not  com- 
plain  if  those  whom  they  most  wish  to  convince, 
keep  aloof  for  the  present  and  wait  for  such  books 
as  they   have  already   received   from  Mr.   Horatio 
Hale,  Dr.  Hahn,  Bishop  Callaway,  the  Rev.  W.  W. 
Gill,  Dr.  Codrington,  and  a  few  more.     Would  any- 
body  with    the    conscience    of  a    scholar   write    on 
Homeric    mythology   if  he  knew   Homer  from   the 
translation  of  Pope  only  ?     Even  the  best  students 
of  American,    Bantu,    Polynesian,    and    Hottentot 
dialects  would  never  think  of  placing  their  know- 
ledge   on  a  level  with   the    critical    knowledge    of 
Greek  possessed  by  Senior  Classics,  to  say  nothing 
of  Hermanns  or  Cobets.     Protests  have  been  entered 
from  time  to  time  against  the  sweeping  assertions 
and    premature     conclusions    put    forward    by    the 
students  of  savage  races.     But  the  charm  of  folk- 
lore lias  hitherto  proved  too  strong. 

1  What  I  mean   I  have  tried  to  explain  once  for  all,  see 
Appendix  V  to  Anthropological  Eeligion,  p.  428. 


i]  SIR    HENRY    MAINE.  29 

Sir  Henry  Maine. 
The  late  Sir  Henry  Maine,  a  man  of  sober  judg- 
ment and  no  mean  authority  on  the  history  of  early 
institutions,  spoke  of  '  the  very  slippery  testimony 
concerning  savages  which  is  gathered  from  travellers' 
tales.' 

'  Much,'  he  says,  '  which  I  have  personally  heard 
in  India  bears  out  the  caution  which  I  gave 
as  to  the  reserve  with  which  all  speculations  on 
the  antiquity  of  human  usages  should  be  received. 
Practices  represented  as  of  immemorial  antiquity, 
and  universally  characteristic  of  the  infancy  of  man- 
kind, have  been  described  to  me  as  having  been  for 
the  first  time  resorted  to  in  our  days  through  the 
mere  pressure  of  external  circumstances  or  moral 
temptations  1.' 

Professor  Le  Page  Renouf,  in  his  Hibbert  Lectures 
on  Egypt  (p.  125),  speaks  still  more  strongly. 

'  The  habits  of  savages,'  he  writes,  '  without  a  his- 
tory are  not  in  themselves  evidence  which  can  in 
any  way  be  depended  upon.  To  take  for  granted 
that  what  the  savages  now  are,  perhaps  after  mil- 
lenniums of  degradation,  all  other  peoples  must  have 
been,  and  that  modes  of  thought  through  which  they 
are  now  passing  have  been  passed  through  by  others, 
is  a  most  unscientific  assumption.' 

Mr.  Horatio  Hale. 

Mr.  Horatio  Hale  has  not  hesitated  to  guess  at 
some  of  the  reasons  why  so  many  writers  have  lately 
been  attracted  by  a  study  of  the  myths  and  customs 
of  savage  tribes.     He  is  an  ethnologist  by  profes- 


Village  Communities,  p.  17. 


30  MR.    HORATIO    HALE.  [chap. 

sion  ;  he  was  President  of  the  American  Folklore 
Society,  and  he  cannot  be  suspected  of  prejudice 
ao-ainst  studies  in  which  he  himself  stands  facile 
princeps.  With  all  this,  this  is  what  he  writes  in 
the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Canada, 
vol.  ix,  sec.  ii,  1891,  in  a  paper  called  'Language 
as  a  test  of  Mental  Capacity,  being  an  attempt 
to  demonstrate  the  true  basis  of  Anthropology' 
(p.  So)  :- 

'  There  can  be  little  question,'  he  says,  '  that  one 
reason  why  linguistic  anthropology,  which  treats 
man  as  an  intellectual  and  moral  being,  has  of  late 
years  been  superseded  by  physical  anthropology, 
which  treats  him  as  a  dumb  brute,  is  that  the  pur- 
suit of  the  latter  science — if  science  it  can  be  called 
— is  so  infinitely  easier.  To  measure  human  bodies 
and  human  bones — to  compare  the  comparative 
number  of  blue  eyes  and  black  eyes  in  any  com- 
munity— to  determine  whether  the  section  of  human 
hair  is  circular  or  oval  or  oblong — to  study  and 
compare  the  habits  of  various  tribes  of  men,  as  we 
would  study  and  compare  the  habits  of  beavers  and 
bees, — these  are  tasks  which  are  comparatively 
simple.  But  the  patient  toil  and  protracted  mental 
exertion  required  to  penetrate  into  the  mysteries  of 
a  strange  language  (often  without  the  aid  of  an 
interpreter),  and  to  acquire  a  knowledge  profound 
enough  to  afford  the  means  of  determining  the  in- 
tellectual endowments  of  the  people  who  speak  it, 
are  such  as  very  few  men  of  science  have  been  will- 
ing to  undergo.' 

This  is  perfectly  honest,  and  yet  perfectly  fair  to 
both  parties,  if  parties  they  can  be  called,  except 
in  the  sense  of  being  partners  in  the  same  important 
work,  and  fellow-labourers  for  the  same  noble  pur- 
poses.   We  linguists  have  always  been  most  grateful 


i]  MR.    HOEATIO    HALE.  3 1 

to  missionaries  and  travellers  for  anything  really 
valuable  which  they  have  contributed  towards  our 
studies.  We  have  listened  with  delight  to  the 
stories  about  sprites  and  spirits  collected  from  every 
quarter  of  the  world,  jDarticularly  if  they  contained 
the  detritus  of  ancient  mythology,  or  accounted  for 
customs  that  now  seem  irrational.  Even  when  they 
told  us  that  the  myth  of  Kronos  becomes  perfectly 
intelligible,  if  only  we  admit  that  the  people  who 
invented  it  were  in  the  habit  of  eating  their  own 
children  without  actually  digesting  them,  we  have 
accepted  the  hint  for  what  it  was  worth,  as  a  stream 
accepts  its  tributaries  from  whatever  source  they 
may  spring.  The  rubbish  and  sand  which  they  carry 
will  soon  sink  in  the  main  stream,  and  something 
worth  having  will  always  remain. 

After  a  time  our  friends  themselves  seem  to  have 
been  afraid  that  their  work  was  in  danger  of  be- 
coming too  popular  and  fashionable,  and  the  old 
scholarlike  spirit  which  had  directed  the  researches 
of  Grimm,  Kuhn,  Schwartz,  Mannhardt,  and  others, 
has  re-asserted  itself  in  such  works  as  Frazer's 
Golden  Bough,  a  work  of  which  any  scholar  might 
well  be  proud. 

What  has  not  been  explained,  however,  by 
Mr.  Horatio  Hale,  is  why  these  eager  collectors  of 
folklore  should  have  manifested  at  the  same  time 
so  much  resentment  against  critical  students  of 
Oriental  and  classical  literature  and  mythology. 

Sanskrit,  and  more  particularly,  Vedic  scholarship 
seems  to  have  incurred  their  highest  displeasure. 
It  was  not  for  me  to  take  up  the  gauntlet  or  to 
defend  a  position,  which  so  far  as  I  could  judge, 
though  it  had  been  threatened,  had  never  been  in 


32  ME.     HORATIO    HALE.  [chap. 

serious  danger.  When  we  were  assured  as;am  and 
again  that  our  work  was  useless  and  antiquated, 
that  every  one  of  us  was  in  a  minority  of  one, 
nay  was  dead,  buried,  and  forgotten,  I  felt  com- 
forted by  the  words  of  Prof.  Victor  Henry  :  '  Mais 
si  Ton  vous  dit  que  l'ecole  adverse  est  morte,  n'en 
croyez  rien.  Si  elle  n'etait  pas  bien  vivante,  on 
ne  la  tuerait  pas  tous  les  jours.'  (Revue  Critique, 
1896,  p.  146.)  It  was  different  when  scholars, 
whether  classical  or  oriental,  criticised  either  the 
etymological  analysis  of  mythological  names  which 
had  been  suggested,  or  found  fault  with  comparisons 
that  had  been  instituted  between  the  myths  of  the 
Veda,  of  Homer,  Virgil,  or  the  Edda.  When  this 
was  done  in  a  scholarlike  spirit  as  by  Curtius,  Kuhn, 
Sonne,  Grassmann,  or  Tiele,  and  more  lately  by  so 
learned  a  veteran  as  Prof.  Gruppe  of  Berlin,  I  have 
always  been  ready  either  to  defend  or  to  surrender 
my  own  opinions.  But  all  these  questions  are  to 
me  serious  matters  (this  is  perhaps  very  foolish),  and 
I  could  never  bring  myself  to  notice  mere  quips  and 
cranks.  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  thought  it  necessary 
in  his  review  of  the  new  edition  of  my  '  Chips  '  to 
mention  that  I  had  never  quoted  him  before.  But 
I  have  of  late  written  very  little  about  the  lan- 
guages or  mythologies  of  savage  races— how  then 
could  I  have  referred  to  him,  whether  agreeing  with 
or  differing  from  him  ?  As  one  grows  old,  one  has 
to  learn  the  very  painful  lesson  of  contrahere 
vela.  One  has  to  read  the  books  which  one  must 
read,  however  heavy  and  tedious  ;  one  cannot  read 
all  the  books  one  would  like  to  read,  such  as  the 
charming  poems  and  essays  of  Mr.  Andrew  Lang. 
I  confess  to  my  shame  that  before  reading  a  book, 


i]  MR.    HORATIO    HALE.  33 

I  generally  ask  the  question  whether  the  author  has 
made  a  Quelle nstudium,  whether  he  possesses 
his  own  spade  to  dig  with,  on  however  small  a  glebe, 
or  whether  he  simply  relies  on  others.  I  know 
I  have  suffered  much  from  this  abstinence,  but  vita 
brevis,  ethnologia  longa. 

I  have  had  the  advantage  of  listening  to,  and 
working  with,  such  men  as  Bishop  Callaway, 
Dr.  Codrington,  the  Rev.  W.  W.  Gill,  Dr.  Hahn, 
and  others,  and  corresponding  with  them  whenever 
I  wanted  information.  I  have  shown  my  interest 
in  their  studies  by  helping  to  bring  out  Dr.  Hahn's 
Tsuni-Goam,  the  Supreme  Being  of  the  Khoi-Khoi 
(1881),  and  writing  a  preface  to  the  Rev.  W.  W. 
Gill's  Myths  and  Songs  from  the  South  Pacific 
(1876).  This  shows  that  at  all  events  I  am  not 
such  a  despiser  of  ethnology  as  some  ethnologists 
would  have  me.  But  after  all,  though  students  of 
Comparative  Mythology  and  of  Ethnology  may  have 
the  same  object  in  view,  and  are  working  in  the 
same  mine,  they  must  resign  themselves  to  working 
in  different  levels  and  with  very  different  tools. 
If  Mr.  Lang  is  digging,  let  us  say,  for  gold,  and 
I  am  digging  for  copper,  his  shaft  need  not  cross 
mine,  nor  mine  his.  The  two  run  parallel,  and  may 
continue  to  run  on  peacefully  side  by  side  before 
they  meet  in  the  end.  Why  he  should  always 
imagine  that  the  Veda  is  in  his  way,  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  understand.  Compared  with  us,  are  not  Vedic 
i^i'shis  savages  also,  or  the  descendants  of  savages  ? 
If  he  could  explain  the  whole  of  Vedic  and  Greek 
mythology  by  the  traditions  of  Kafirs  and  Hottentots, 
that  would  not  in  the  least  render  our  own  work 
superfluous.  His  work  is  and  can  never  be  more 
vol.  1.  D 


34  MR.   HORATIO    HALE.  [chap. 

than  psychological,  ours  is  something  totally  different, 
it  is  essentially  historical,  nay,  when  possible, 
linguistic  and  genealogical.  I  am  delighted  when- 
ever I  hear  in  the  newspapers  of  the  large  output  of 
his  shaft,  I  often  wish,  for  the  very  reasons  men- 
tioned by  Mr.  Horatio  Hale,  that  I  could  exchange 
my  mine  for  his.  Still,  such  as  it  is,  our  output 
also  must  have  some  value,  for  why  should  our 
researches  rouse  so  much  envy  and  opposition,  nay 
so  much  angry  language  ? 

Professor  Tiele. 

I  have  not  seen  half  of  the  attacks  on  Compara- 
tive Mythology,  but  there  must  have  been  many,  if 
I  may  judge  from  some  strong  remonstrances  coming 
from  quarters  whence  they  would  least  have  been 
expected.  One  of  Mr.  Lang's  friends  and  defenders 
goes  so  far  as  to  speak  of  a  journalistic  mist  that 
has  obscured  all  scientific  criticism,  nay  he  blames 
me  for  having  tried  to  refute  Mr.  A.  Lang  only,  while 
neglecting  '  those  great  movements  of  research  and 
thought  which  have  led  nearly  all  serious  students 
of  mythology  and  folklore  to  discard  the  most 
fondly  cherished  features  of  my  system  V  Is  this 
quite  true  ? 

Besides  Signor  Canizzaro  and  Mr.  Horatio  Hale, 
the  veteran  among  comparative  ethnologists,  Pro- 
fessor Tiele,  in  his  Le  Mythe  de  Kronos  (1886),  has 
very  strongly  protested  against  the  downright  mis- 
representations of  what  I  and  my  friends  have 
really  written. 

Professor  Tiele  had  been  appealed  to  as  an  unim- 

1  Athenaeum,  April  4,  1896. 


i]  PROFESSOR    TIELE.  35 

peachable  authority.  He  was  even  claimed  as  an  ally 
by  the  ethnological  students  of  customs  and  myths, 
but  he  strongly  declined  that  honour  (1.  c,  p.  31)  : — 

'  M.  Lang  m'a  fait  l'honneur  de  me  citer,'  he  writes, 
'  comme  un  de  ses  allies,  et  j'ai  lieu  de  croire  que 
M.  Gaidoz  en  fait  en  quelque  mesure  autant.  Ces 
messieurs  n'ont  point  entierement  tort.  Cependant 
je  dois  m'elever,  au  nom  de  la  science  mythologique 
et  de  l'exactitude  dont  elle  ne  peut  pas  plus  se 
passer  que  les  autres  sciences,  contre  une  methode 
qui  ne  fait  que  glisser  sur  des  problemes  de  premiere 
importance,'  &c. 

Speaking  of  the  whole  method  followed  by  those 
who  actually  claimed  to  have  founded  a  new  school 
of  mythology,  he  says  (p.  21) : — 

'  Je  crains  toutefois  que  ce  qui  s'y  trouve  de  vrai 
ne  soit  connu  depuis  longtemps,  et  que  la  nouvelle 
ecole  ne  peche  par  exclusionisme  tout  autant  que 
les  ainees  quelle  combat  avec  tant  de  conviction.' 

This  is  exactly  what  I  have  always  said.  What  is 
there  new  in  comparing  the  customs  and  myths  of 
the  Greeks  with  those  of  the  barbarians  ?  Has  not 
even  Plato  done  this.  Did  anybody  doubt  that  the 
Greeks,  nay  even  the  Hindus,  were  uncivilised  or 
savages,  before  they  became  civilised  or  tamed  ? 
Was  not  this  common  sense  view,  so  strongly  insisted 
on  by  Fontenelle  and  Vico  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
carried  even  to  excess  by  such  men  as  De  Brosses 
(1709-1 771)?  And  have  the  lessons  taught  to  De 
Brosses  by  his  witty  contemporaries  been  quite  for- 
gotten? Must  his  followers  be  told  again  and  again 
that  they  ought  to  begin  with  a  critical  examination 
of  the  evidence  put  before  them  by  casual  travellers, 
and  that  mythology  is  as  little  made  up  of  one  and  the 
same  material  as  the  crust  of  the  earth  of  granite  only? 

D  2 


36  KRONOS    AND    POLYNESIAN    FOLKLORE.  [chap. 

Kronos  and  Polynesian  Folklore. 

After  many  conversations  with  the  Rev.  W.W.  Gill, 
I  had  ventured  to  explain  one  part  of  the  myth  of 
Kronos  by  a  reference  to  Polynesian  and  Melanesian 
folklore,  long  before  the  new  school  triumphantly 
proclaimed  that  discovery  as  peculiarly  its  own. 
Prof.  Tiele  states  that  Preller  already,  in  his  Greek 
Mythology,  instituted  the  same  comparison,  and 
shows  at  the  same  time  that  Mr.  Lang's  application 
of  it  is  really  faulty  (see  pp.  17,  27).  I  do  not  wish 
to  claim  any  priority,  and  as  I  do  not  read  all  the 
Folklore  Journals,  the  discovery,  for  all  I  know, 
may  have  been  made  long  before  my  time.  I  only 
mention  it  here  in  order  to  show,  as  Prof.  Tiele 
has  done,  that  my  own  method  of  Comparative 
Mythology,  call  it  etymological,  genealogical,  or 
anything  else,  does  not  exclude  sound  ethnological 
evidence  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  come.  Why 
should  it,  if  only  it  is  vouched  for  by  a  real  Poly- 
nesian or  Melanesian  scholar,  as,  for  instance,  by 
the  Rev. W.W.  Gill  or  Dr.  Codrington?  As  soon 
as  we  know  that  Ina  or  Sina,  in  Mangaia  the 
beloved  of  Tuna  of  the  cocoanut,  means  the  moon, 
her  legends  become  transparent.  Whether  we  should 
gain  much  by  comparing  her  name  with  that  of  the 
Babylonian  moon-goddess  Sin,  I  doubt,  but  I  gladly 
leave  it  to  ethnologists  to  decide  that  question.  As 
soon  as  it  has  been  proved  that  Taramahetonga 
means  south-wind,  or  Taramaakiaki  sea-weed,  we 
see  a  physical  background,  however  distant,  for  the 
stories  told  of  them. 

Professor  Tiele  and  I  differ  on  several  points,  but 
we  perfectly  understand  each  other,  and  when  we 


i]  KR0N0S    AND    POLYNESIAN    FOLKLORE.  37 

have  made  a  mistake,  we  readily  confess  it  and 
correct  it.  But  the  railleries  of  M.  Gaidoz  are 
quite  beyond  my  obtuse  understanding,  whereas 
what  Prof.  Tiele  calls  the  'juvenile  impetuosity'  of 
these  students  of  customs  and  myths  seems  to  me  de- 
ficient even  in  that  French  raillerie  which  is  truly 
called  '  un  jeu  d'esprit  de  ceux  qui  n'en  ont  pas  ! ' 

M.  Gaidoz. 
M.  Gaidoz  might  do  such  excellent  work,  parti- 
cularly as  a  Celtic  scholar,  that  it  seems  a  pity  he 
should  not  help  us  in  digging  on  Aryan  ground, 
where  so  little  has  as  yet  been  done  for  Celtic 
customs  and  myths.  He  is  far  too  much  of  a  scholar 
to  fall  under  the  condemnation  of  Professor  Tiele 
when  he  writes  (p.  1 1)  : — 

'  Ces  braves  gens  qui,  pour  peu  qu'ils  aient  lu  un 
ou  deux  livres  de  mythologie  et  d'anthropologie  et 
un  ou  deux  recits  de  voyages,  ne  manqueront  pas 
de  se  mettre  a  comparer  a  tort  et  a  travers,  et 
pour  tout  resultat  produiront  la  confusion.' 

This  is  strong  language,  but  is  it  too  strong  % 
This  confusion  is  to  a  great  extent  the  result, 
I  shall  not  say  of  ignorance,  but  of  ignoring  what 
has  been  written  by  special  scholars,  and  particularly 
by  students  of  Sanskrit. 

It  seems  that  nothing  has  aroused  such  opposition 
and  such  monotonous  raillerie  as  our  constant 
appeal  to  language  and  etymology  as  solvents  of 
mythology. 

The  Influence  of  Language  on  Mythology. 
Whereas  I  have  laboured  hard  all  my  life  to  show 
the   inevitable   influence  of  language   on   thought, 
I  am  told,  once  for  all,  that  language  had  nothing 


38      INFLUENCE    OF    LANGUAGE    ON    MYTHOLOGY,     [chap. 

to  do  with  the  origin  of  myths,  or,  if  anything, 
'not  more  than  five  per  cent.'  As  an  admission  of 
indebtedness  even  five  per  cent,  in  these  days 
is  welcome. 

I  had  published  a  large  book  on  the  '  Science  of 
Thought,'  and  a  large  book  may  be  called  a  large 
mistake.  I  knew  few  people  would  read  it,  but 
I  felt  bound  all  the  same  to  explain,  once  for  all, 
what  I  meant  by  the  influence  of  language  on 
thought,  and  in  what  sense  I  had  called,  and  still 
call,  mythology  a  disease  of  language  and  thought. 
I  imagined  I  had  made  it  clear  that  identity  of  lan- 
guage and  thought  could  only  be  meant  for  insepar- 
ableness  of  thought  and  language.  In  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word,  it  is  clear  that  no  two  things  can 
ever  be  identical  in  this  world.  But  I  thought  I  had 
proved  that  language  and  thought  are  manifestations 
of  one  and  the  same  energy.  Even  Mr.  Darwin 
admitted  in  the  end  that  signs  are  indispensable  for 
the  formation  of  abstract  ideas,  and  what  signs  are 
more  natural  and  more  generally  accepted  than 
words  ?  Other  biologists  went  even  further,  and 
Virchow  admitted  '  that  only,  after  their  per- 
ceptions have  become  fixed  by  language,  are  the 
senses  brought  to  a  conscious  possession  and  a  real 
understanding  of  them.'  If,  then,  the  ordinary  signs 
of  abstract  ideas  are  words,  and  if,  as  Comparative 
Philology  has  proved,  every  appellative  (with  the 
exception  of  onomatopoeic  words)  presupposes  an 
abstract  idea  embodied  in  a  root,  it  would  require 
but  little  consideration  to  understand  that  in  the 
very  first  attempts  at  real  language,  the  sign  may 
react  on  what  is  signified.  This  action  and  reaction 
between  the  sign  and  what  is  signified,  or,  in  other 


i]  INFLUENCE  OF  LANGUAGE  ON  MYTHOLOGY.  39 

words,  between  language  and  thought  is,  to  put  it 
in  the  simplest  form,  what  is  meant  by  an  affection, 
a  pathological  affection,  or,  from  another  point  of 
view,  a  disease  of  language.  Anyhow,  people  who 
can  bravely  maintain  that  language  has  nothing  to 
do  with  language  and  myth,  would  find  it  difficult 
to  explain  why  in  Greek  /xv0o<;  came  to  mean  both 
word  and  myth. 

If  it  is  asked  how,  if  language  and  thought  are 
inseparable,  they  can  react  on  one  another,  we  must 
remember  that  language,  which  is  originally  an  energy 
or  action,  becomes,  by  pronunciation, an  act,  i.e.  some- 
thing done,  a  product,  which  remains,  independent 
of  us,  after  the  action  is  over.  The  word,  as  we  hear 
it  and  learn  it  and  repeat  it,  is  no  longer  our  creative 
act,  but  something  apart  from  us,  something  past, 
which,  however,  like  many  things  that  are  past, 
determines  in  many  ways  what  is  present  in  thought 
and  speech. 

How  Gender  influences  Mythology. 

Let  me  give  one  illustration.  If  the  inherited 
portion  of  language  did  not  react  on  thought,  how 
should  we  explain  so  simple  a  case,  not,  however, 
without  importance  in  the  formation  of  mythology, 
as  the  reaction  produced  by  the  masculine  and 
feminine  terminations  of  nouns  on  the  character 
signified  by  a  word  ? 

As  soon  as  we  call  the  sun  Suryas,  it  assumes 
a  masculine,  an  active  character,  as  brightening, 
enlivening,  fertilising  the  world ;  call  it  Surya,  fern., 
or  *Svara  =  Here,  and  we  have  before  us  a  kind 
and  beautiful  woman,  a  bride,  a  wife,  a  mother,  as 
the  case  may  be. 


40  THE    MOON.  [CHAP. 

The  Moon. 

It  is  well  known  that  in  the  Teutonic  languages 
the  moon  was  originally  masculine,  as  the  ruler  of 
times  and  seasons,  and  as  the  guardian  of  all  the 
institutions  dependent  on  times  and  seasons,  and 
this  at  a  period  in  the  history  of  civilisation  long 
before  the  course  of  the  sun  had  been  sufficiently 
watched  to  serve  the  same  purpose. 

We  have  Gothic  mena,  m.,  0.  H.  G.  mano,  m., 
A.  S.  mona,  m.,  Icel.  mani,  m.,  Greek  fxrjv,  m., 
Sk.  mas,  m.  The  names  for  month  are  the  same, 
or  slightly  modified,  but  always  masculine. 

The  Sun. 

The  sun,  on  the  contrary,  is  Goth,  sun  no,  fern., 
A.  S.  sunne,  fern.,  and  this  can  only  have  been  due 
to  the  introduction  of  solar  by  the  side  of  lunar 
chronometry.  In  Gothic  we  find  not  only  sunno, 
fern.,  but  likewise  sunn  a,  masc.  The  Old  Norse 
sol,  however,  is  fern,  only,  and  therefore  not  borrowed 
from  Latin  sol.  As  soon  as  mythology  says  anything 
about  sun  and  moon,  it  is  clear  how  it  must  submit 
to  the  fetters  of  language.  If  the  Edda  speaks  of 
sun  and  moon  as  the  children  of  Mundilfari,  the 
giant  who  is  supposed  to  make  the  heavens  turn 
round,  Mani,  the  moon,  becomes  at  once  his  son, 
S61,  the  sun,  his  daughter. 

In  the  Slavonic  dialects  the  sun  is  chiefly  named 
and  conceived  as  feminine,  and  if  that  is  once  done, 
the  whole  family  of  the  sky  had  to  be  rearranged 
accordingly.  Hence,  in  an  early  stage,  the  sun  with 
the  Slaves  1  was  a  cow,  the  moon  a  calf,  the  stars 
goats.     At  a  later  time  the  sun  is  a  beautiful  maid, 

1  Krek,  1.  c,  p.  300. 


i]  THE    SUN.  41 

like  the  dawn,  playing  on  the  meadow  of  the  sky. 
Her  children  are  the  stars,  and  one  of  them,  Ivan, 
calls  the  moon  his  father,  the  sun  his  mother,  the 
gloaming  his  sister,  and  the  grey  falcon  (morning- 
star?)  his  brother.  In  other  songs,  however,  all 
this  is  changed.  The  sun  becomes  the  father,  the 
moon  his  son ;  nay,  sun,  moon,  and  rain  are  repre- 
sented as  three  brothers.  In  one  song  the  sun  is 
the  mother  of  the  dawn,  in  another  her  daughter, 
and  in  a  third  the  brother  of  the  moon1,  just  as 
Helios  is  the  brother  of  Selene. 

Who  can  fail  to  see  the  germs  of  mythology  in  all 
this  ?  And  yet  we  are  told  ex  cathedra  that 
language  has  nothing  to  do  with  myths  which  tell 
us  of  the  fates  of  the  supreme  deities,  such  as  sun, 
moon,  sky,  rain.  If  there  had  been  no  distinction 
of  gender  should  we  have  had  one  set  of  stories  of 
the  sun  as  a  woman,  another  of  the  sun  as  a  man  ? 
And  why  are  sexless  languages,  as  Bleek  has  shown, 
so  poor  in  mythology,  if  these  small  differences 
between  Sk.  as  and  a,  Gr.  09  and  a,  Lat.  us  and 
a,  had  had  nothing  to  do  with  thought,  nothing 
with  mythology?  Should  we  have  had  in  the 
Veda  the  myth  of  SavitW  giving  his  daughter  Surya 
(sun)  to  Soma  (moon),  and  among  the  Slaves  the 
myth  contained  in  the  following  verses  ? — 

The  Moon  leads  home  the  Sun, 

It  was  in  the  first  spring. 

The  Sun  rose  early, 

The  Moon  left  her, 

He  took  a  walk  alone, 

Fell  in  love  with  the  Morning-star, 

Then  Perkana  was  angry, 

1  Krek,  1.  c,  p.  315. 


42  THE    SUN.  [CHAP. 

And  cleft  him  with  his  sword. 
'Why  hast  thou  gone  away? 
Walking  alone  by  night? 
Flirting  with  the  Morning-star?' 
Then  his  heart  was  sorrowful. 

Here  we  have  the  full-grown  myth,  and  could 
this  myth  have  grown  up  unless  the  moon  had  been 
a  masculine  ?  It  should  be  remembered  that  in 
Indian  mythology  also,  Soma,  after  being  married 
to  the  twenty-seven  daughters  of  Daksha,  is  faithless 
to  them,  and  lives  with  Rohim  alone,  so  that  his 
father-in-law  causes  him  to  become  consumptive. 
At  the  intercession  of  his  wives,  however,  this 
consumption,  it  is  said,  ceased  to  be  fatal,  and  was 
made  periodical — a  myth  easy  to  understand. 

Ideas  fixed  by  Words. 

But  gender  is  by  no  means  the  most  important 
manifestation  of  the  influence  exercised  by  language 
on  thought.  Why  is  there  a  name  for  light,  say 
Dyaus ;  why  is  there  a  name  for  darkness,  say 
Night?  These  names  were  not  given  to  men  as 
a  present.  They  had  to  be  created  and  elaborated, 
and  they  then  remained  as  facts  and  powers  to  be 
reckoned  with.  There  need  have  been  no  name 
restricted  to  the  transient  light  of  the  dawn,  but 
when  that  peculiar  light  had  once  been  singled  out 
and  named,  it  could  not  be  ignored  again. 

We  have  been  told  that  there  are  languages 
without  numerals  above  two  or  three,  without 
words  for  right  and  left,  east  and  west.  There  are 
certainly  languages  without  words  for  heroes,  half- 
gods,  goddesses,  and  all  the  rest,  thus  showing  that 
all  such  ideas  had  to  be  elaborated,  and  that  if  there 
were  no  words,  there  were  no  ideas. 


i]  IDEAS    FIXED    BY    WORDS.  43 

Sometimes,  however,  nay  very  frequently,  it 
happened  that  two  names  derived  from  two  salient 
attributes  were  given  to  the  same  object,  say  the 
fleeting  light  of  the  morning,  and  in  that  case  there 
would  be  two  powers  that  would  have  to  be  accom- 
modated in  the  folklore  of  ancient  nations.  And  if, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  same  name  had  been  given 
to  two  objects,  such  as  the  twilight  in  the  morning 
and  the  twilight  in  the  evening  (naktoshasa  sama- 
nasa  virupe),  conflicts  and  confusion  would  inevitably 
arise,  which  it  required  all  the  ingenuity  of  poets 
and  story-tellers  to  set  right. 

Here  is  the  real,  far-reaching  influence  of  language 
on  thought,  and  here  we  can  learn  in  what  sense 
the  two  may  be  said  to  be  identical,  or  at  least 
inseparable.  And  yet  people  ask,  What  is  the 
meaning  of  a  disease  of  language 1  ? 

Deva. 

Who  can  say  whether  it  was  the  work  of 
the  thought  or  the  language,  of  man  thinking  or 
of  man  speaking  (as  if  the  two  could  ever  be 
separated),  that  deva,  meaning  bright,  should  have 
been  used  with  reference  to  the  sun,  moon,  stars, 
sky,  dawn,  morning,  spring,  &c,  so  that  by  becoming 
generalised,  it  gradually  lost  its  definite  physical 
meaning,  and  signified  in  the  end  no  more  than 
a  quality  shared  in  common  by  all  these  powers,  so 
that  it  came  to  mean  god  or  whatever  was  intended 
by  deva,  deus,  god  ?  Should  we  ever  have  had  such 
a  name  for  god,  imperfect  as  it  was  in  the  beginning, 
except  for  the  almost  mechanical  working  of  language, 
uncontrolled  by  any  wish  or  will  of  the  speaker  ? 

1  0.  Gruppe,  Jahresb.  liber  d.  Mythologie,  1 891-92,  p.  20  seq. 


44  MYTHOLOGY  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  [CHAP. 

Importance  of  Mythology  and  Philosophy. 

And  then  we  are  asked,  What  has  language  to 
do  with  thought?  Might  we  not  ask  in  return, 
What  has  thought  to  do  with  language  ?  It  is  as 
a  necessary  phase  in  the  historical  development  of 
human  thought  that  mythology  becomes  of  real  im- 
portance to  every  student  of  philosophy.  Ever  since 
Schelling,  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  delivered  his 
lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Mythology,  mythology 
has  ceased  to  be  a  mere  amusement.  It  is  to 
philosophy  what  the  Devonian  stratum  is  to  geology, 
the  period  of  the  moneres  and  the  amoeba  to 
biology.  If  there  is  continuity  in  the  growth  of 
the  human  mind,  and  if  mythology  by  its  irrational 
appearance  has  long  seemed  to  break  that  continuity, 
the  Science  of  Mythology  undertakes  to  remove 
what  seems  irrational  and  to  vindicate  the  postu- 
lated continuity  of  human  reason.  '  Hie  Phodos, 
hie  salta ! ' 

Differences  of  Opinion  Natural. 

In  such  a  science  as  Comparative  Mythology, 
which  undertakes  to  rediscover  the  thoughts  hidden 
in  linguistic  petrifactions  four  or  five  thousand  years 
old,  we  cannot  yet  expect  perfect  certainty  or 
unanimity,  we  must  be  prepared  for  uncertainties, 
such  as  are  inherent  in  the  subject  itself;  nor  must 
we  object  to  criticisms,  if  only  serious,  and  not  made 
purely  for  the  sake  of  controversy.  If  we  also  have 
caught  now  and  then  a  Protogenes  Haekelii,  we  can 
confess  our  mistake,  we  can  even  account  for  it. 

We  may  all  agree  that  the  so-called  deities  and 
heroes  of  ancient  mythology  represented  originally 
unknown  agents  behind  certain  phenomena  of  nature 


i]  DIFFERENCES    OF    OPINION    NATURAL.  45 

— at  least  I  am  not  aware  of  any  one  who  would 
contest  this  now — but  there  has  often  been  differ- 
ence of  opinion  as  to  what  special  phenomenon  is 
represented  by  a  certain  god  or  goddess. 

Importance  of  Names. 

Here  the  names  of  gods  are  of  immense  usefulness. 
That  Agni  was  originally  meant  for  fire,  even  when 
he  is  represented  as  the  courteous  lover  of  Mahish- 
mati,  the  daughter  of  King  Nila  (Physical  Religion, 
p.  1 98),  no  one  would  be  bold  enough  to  deny.  Here 
the  evidence  of  the  name  is  too  strong,  nor  would 
the  phonetic  difficulty,  serious  as  it  is  in  these  words 
(Latin  i  =  Sanskrit  a),  justify  us  in  denying  the  iden- 
tity of  the  Sanskrit  Agni  and  the  Latin  ignis. 
But  when  the  name  speaks  less  distinctly,  there 
may  be,  of  course,  differences  of  opinion  as  to  what 
element  or  what  event  in  nature  formed  the  real 
starting-point  of  a  myth  or  a  legend.  And  yet 
the  choice  is  never  very  large.  First  of  all,  some 
mythological  names  have  retained  their  appellative 
character.  No  Sanskrit  scholar  could  doubt  for  one 
moment  that  Savit?^',  Surya,  Mitra,  Vislmu,  Yir&g, 
Rohita,  nay  even  Pragdpati,  are  all  meant  for  the 
light  or  the  sun,  each,  no  doubt,  having  his  own 
peculiar  character,  but  all  starting  from  a  common 
source.  In  several  of  their  later  developments  these 
deities  coincide  with  others,  such  as  Agni,  fire  or 
light  in  general,  with  Yama  (the  setting  sun),  nay 
even  with  Dyaus  (the  bright  sky),  and  Indra  (the 
giver  of  rain).  If  one  were  to  say  that  therefore 
Indra  and  Dyaus  are  both  the  sun,  the  same  as 
SavitW  and  Surya,  this  would  give  a  totally  false 
impression,  though  no  one  can  doubt  that  some  of 


46  IMPORTANCE    OF    NAMES.  [chap. 

the  achievements  ascribed  to  Dyaus  or  Indra  are 
the  achievements  of  solar  or  celestial  agents.  It 
would  be  equally  wrong  to  take  Apollon,  the  son  of 
Zeus,  for  the  sun,  though  no  one  can  doubt  that 
many  of  the  actions  ascribed  to  him  can  only  be 
understood  as  solar  actions.  If  par^anya  in  later 
Sanskrit  means  a  rain-cloud,  how  can  we  doubt  that 
the  character  of  the  Vedic  deity  Pan/anya  was  the 
same,  though  when  Par</anya  is  represented  as 
an  active  and  a  lighting  hero,  his  character  often 
approaches  very  close  to  that  of  Indra,  followed  by 
his  companions  the  Maruts. 

Help  to  be  derived  from  Gender. 

Secondly,  within  the  sphere  of  Aryan  mythology, 
gender  helps  us  to  distinguish  between  what  are 
called  gods  and  goddesses,  and  we  know  on  the 
whole  which  phenomena  of  nature  may  be  looked 
upon  as  active  and  masculine,  and  which  as  passive 
and  feminine.  Still  even  here  there  are  difficulties. 
The  dawn,  no  doubt,  is  generally  a  feminine  deity, 
but  in  the  form  of  Pater  matutinus  or  Janus,  or  of 
Agni  ushasya,  we  have  male  representatives  of  the 
matutinal  light. 

The  earth,  PWthivi,  is  mostly  conceived  as  a 
mother,  but  the  deities  beneath  the  earth,  the 
Chthonioi,  or  Katachthonioi,  such  as  Zeus-Hades, 
or  Pluton,  and  Hermes,  in  some  of  their  capacities, 
are  masculine,  by  the  side  of  such  goddesses  as 
Demeter  and  Persephone.  The  night  is  generally 
a  feminine,  but  there  are  some  of  her  features  which 
have  been  personified  by  masculine  names,  such  as 
Kerberos,  the  Sanskrit  sarvara.  The  most  perplex- 
ing physical  phenomenon  with  regard  to  its  gender 


i]  HELP    TO    BE    DERIVED    FROM    GENDER.  47 

is  the  moon.  Among  the  Aryan  nations  the  earliest 
conception  of  the  moon  was  certainly  masculine. 
We  saw  that  he  was  thought  of  as  an  active  power, 
as  determining  the  nights  and  days,  as  helping  man 
to  count  days,  weeks,  fortnights,  and  moons,  nay 
even  as  the  giver  of  rain,  and  as  the  lengthener  of 
life.  In  that  case  the  sun  by  the  side  of  the  moon 
would  often,  though  not  always,  be  a  feminine.  But 
with  the  prevalence  of  solar  chronometry,  the  sun, 
as  the  more  powerful  luminary,  began,  after  a  time, 
to  replace  the  moon,  so  much  so  that  the  moon  had 
often  to  become  a  feminine,  in  order  to  be  conceived 
as  the  companion  of  the  sun,  whether  as  friend, 
or  sister,  or  wife.  In  that  case  the  mythological 
character  of  the  moon  changed  so  completely  that 
many  things  which  were  formerly  said  and  sung  of 
the  night  or  of  the  dawn,  as  the  friend  of  the  sun, 
were  supposed  to  refer  to '  the  moon.  People  in 
whose  language  the  moon  had  become  a  feminine 
became  themselves  doubtful  whether  certain  legends 
of  love-sick  maidens  were  originally  meant  for  the 
dawn  or  for  the  moon 1.  What  they  were  unable 
to  do,  we  are  not  likely  to  achieve,  unless  we  avail 
ourselves  of  an  instrument  which  they  did  not  pos- 
sess, I  mean  the  microscope  of  etymological  analysis. 
With  the  help  of  this  we  can  see  how  in  some  cases 
the  masculine  names  of  the  sun  were  changed  into 
feminines,  how  Sury&  became  Surya,  SavitW,  Savitri, 
so  as  to  fit  into  stories  in  which  the  moon  acted 
a  masculine  part.  Nor  need  these  changes  have 
always  been  successive  in  time.     If  one  clan  spoke 

1  This  will  serve  to  account  for  the  difference  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  certain  myths  between  myself  and  Professor  Siecke,  in 
his  book,  Die  Liebesgeschichte  des  Himmels,  1892. 


48  HELP    TO    BE    DERIVED    FROM    GENDER.  [chap. 

of  the  moon  as  a  masculine,  a  neighbouring  clan 
might  have  looked  upon  the  sun  as  a  feminine,  and 
vice  versa.  The  old  Sanskrit  name  of  the  sun, 
SavitW,  was  masculine,  but  it  appears  as  a  feminine 
in  Savitri,  in  whose  dying  husband,  Satyavat,  we 
cannot  but  recognise  the  waning  moon. 

The  Dual  or  Correlative  Character  of  Deities. 

Thirdly,  we  can  easily  distinguish  a  whole  class 
of  correlative  ]  deities  corresponding  to  such  promi- 
nent dual  phenomena  in  nature  as  day  and  night, 
sun  and  moon,  spring  and  winter,  heaven  and  earth, 
and  in  their  case  also  recognition  becomes  easier. 
Only  here,  again,  we  must  never  forget  that  the 
sphere  of  action  of  each  deity  is  very  wide. 

The  Asvins  and  Helena. 

The  two  Asvins,  for  instance  (not  the  horsemen,  but 
the  descendants  of  Asva,  the  dawn),  were,  no  doubt, 
originally  representatives  of  light  and  darkness  in 
their  constant  changes,  seen  in  the  unbroken  succes- 
sion of  day  and  night  and  their  concomitant  phe- 
nomena. Their  sphere  of  activity  might  be  widened 
or  narrowed.  While  in  some  passages  they  seem  to 
represent  the  alternation  of  light  and  darkness  in 
the  most  general  way,  they  occupy  elsewhere  the  well- 
known  spheres  of  Mitra  and  Vanma,  of  Agni  and 
Soma,  and  seem  to  have  been  taken  or  mistaken 
occasionally  for  the  representatives  of  the  morning 
and  evening  stars.  In  India  they  were,  at  a  later 
time,  taken  for  two  kings  famous  in  ancient  story, 
thus  explaining  the  legendary  character  of  their 
counterparts  in  Greece,  such  as  Kastor  and  Poly- 

1  See  Science  of  Language,  ii,  pp.  604  seq. 


i]  THE    ASVINS    AND    HELENA.  49 

deukes,  and  similar  pairs  of  brothers  or  twins.  If 
then  these  dual  deities  are  what  they  are,  say 
morning  and  evening,  what  can  their  sister  (their 
dSe\(f)rj,  sagarbha)  have  been  meant  for  ?  If  Helena 
was  the  sister  of  the  diurnal  twins,  the  AioV/copoi 
on  their  white  horses,  who  could  she  be  but  the 
dawn,  the  daughter  of  Zeus,  duhita  Divas  ? 

Whatever  difficulties  may  be  urged  against  this 
explanation,  they  must  all  give  way  before  these 
simple  facts,  so  that  whoever  tries  to  defend  the 
historical  character  of  Helena,  must  also  establish 
the  historical  character  of  the  egg  from  which  she 
was  born  together  with  her  two  brothers,  the  sons 
of  Leda  and  the  swan  (Tzetzes  Lycophr.  51 1). 

Many-sidedness  of  Ancient  Gods. 

In  this  way  the  choice  of  possible  prototypes  of 
ancient  mythological  personalities  is  limited,  but 
though  there  is  no  great  danger  of  our  mistaking 
gods  of  the  day  for  gods  of  the  night,  or  gods  of  the 
waters  for  gods  of  the  hills,  still  we  must  always 
remember  that  the  sphere  of  activity  of  the  ancient 
gods  was  not  so  strictly  circumscribed  as  we  imagine. 
If  we  keep  this  fact  in  view,  we  shall  see  that  many 
of  our  difficulties  in  explaining  the  character  of  the 
ancient  Vedic  gods  were  self-created,  and  that  Yaska 
was  right  in  assigning  to  each  Deva  a  far  wider 
sphere  of  action,  by  no  means  restricted  to  the  small 
domain  from  which,  as  its  name  shows,  a  god  took 
his  first  departure.  The  god  of  the  bright  sky  has 
many  sides.  Some  of  the  legends  told  of  him  may 
reflect  the  rising  sun  or  the  morning,  others  the 
clouds,  the  storm,  the  rain,  even  thunder  and  light- 
ning, others  the  bright  spring  or  the  year,  others 

vol.  1.  E 


50  MANY-SIDEDNESS    OF    ANCIENT    GODS.  [chap. 

even  the  setting  of  a  glorious  life  conveying  the 
first  intimation  of  a  life  to  come.  How  the  character 
of  a  god  can  change  through  the  preponderance  of 
one  or  the  other  of  his  attributes,  we  see  in  the 
case  of  Varu/ia,  originally  no  more  than  the  god 
of  the  dark  covering  sky,  who,  in  the  later  Hindu 
mythology,  became  the  god  of  the  waters  ;  or  in  the 
case  of  the  Asvins  who,  being  originally  representa- 
tives of  day  and  night,  as  appearing  alternatively 
before  the  eyes  of  men,  became  in  time  two  kings, 
nay  the  two  physicians  of  the  gods. 

Even  Indra  was  often  worshipped  as  the  supreme 
ruler  of  the  gods,  with  an  utter  forgetfulness  of  his 
more  limited  physical  character  as  fighting  the  dark 
clouds  and  delivering  the  waters  held  captive  within 
them.  But  with  all  these  reservations,  our  attempts 
to  discover  the  original  meaning  of  the  names  of 
gods  and  heroes  has  still  many  difficulties  to  con- 
tend with. 

Etymology  uncertain. 

There  are  prejudices,  particularly  among  classical 
scholars,  so  strong  that  the  etymology  of  Zeus,  and 
the  relationship  claimed  by  the  Vedic  Dyaus  with 
the  Greek  Zeus,  is  ignored,  if  not  openly  rejected. 
While  Signor  Canizzaro  says  :  '  Dyaus  =  Zeus  iraTrjp 
=  Jupiter,  Varuna  =  Ovpavos,  'EpfjLrj<;  =  Sarameyas, 
'Epivvs  =  Saranyu  sono  verita  dimonstrate  irrefuta- 
bili ; '  other  scholars  declare  these  equations  are 
futile  or  impossible.  Fortunately  there  are  tests  to 
which  both  parties  must  submit,  and  from  which 
there  is  no  appeal.  It  has  never  been  denied  that 
there  are  cases  where  no  amount  of  scholarship 
will  enable  us  to  decide  between  two  etymologies. 


i]  ETYMOLOGY    UNCEKTAIN.  5 1 

Whether  Vesta  or  'Ecrrta  is  derived  from  the  root 
vas,  to  shine,  or  from  the  root  vas,  to  dwell,  is  im- 
possible to  decide  on  phonetic  grounds  only,  however 
positively  some  scholars  may  declare  in  favour  of  one 
or  the  other  view l.  The  same  applies  to  the  name  of 
Here,  whether  equivalent  to  a  postulated  svara 
or  vasra.  Here  we  must  be  guided  by  other  evi- 
dence, and  the  same  applies  to  numerous  cases 
where,  in  comparing  mythological  names  in  different 
Aryan  languages,  we  are  met  by  certain  real  or 
imaginary  irregularities,  whether  in  their  vowels  or 
consonants.     On  this  more  hereafter. 

Mythological  and  Historical  Elements. 

Mythology  is  a  compound  of  many  and  very 
heterogeneous  elements.  But  whatever  additions 
may  have  been  made  to  it  afterwards,  it  must 
always  be  remembered  that  the  foundation  of  my- 
thology was  physical.  On  this  point  there  can  be 
no  longer  any  difference  of  opinion.  Without  a 
recognition  of  that  substratum,  a  study  of  mytho- 
logy would  cease  to  be  a  scientific  study.  The 
beginning  of  mythology  came  from  a  poetical  and 
philosophical  conception  of  nature  and  its  most 
prominent  phenomena  ;  or,  if  poetry  and  philosophy 
combined  may  claim  the  name  of  religion,  from  a 
religious  conception  of  the  universe.  Its  later  de- 
velopment, however,  seems  to  exclude  nothing  that 
can  touch  the  hearts  of  men.  Hence  arises  the 
great  difficulty,  nay  the  impossibility  of  applying 
the  same  key  to  all  the  secret  drawers  of  mythology. 

1  Fick,  s.  v.,  derives  ftcrria,  ftarla,  and  Vesta  from  ves,  to 
dwell;  ushas,  afus,  dawn,  from  ves,  to  shine. 

E  2 


52      MYTHOLOGICAL    AND    HISTORICAL    ELEMENTS,     [chap. 

Though  in  geology  we  can  understand  the  regu- 
larly stratified  layers,  it  does  not  follow  that  we  can 
always  account  for  erratic  fragments  in  them,  or 
for  the  change  and  confusion  produced  by  volcanic 
irruptions  and  consequent  metamorphic  changes. 
The  same  in  mythology.  As  long  as  mythology 
reflects  nature,  and  describes  nature  in  terms  of 
poetry,  of  animism,  or  personification,  we  can  gene- 
rally follow  its  footsteps ;  but  as  soon  as  it  admits 
into  its  strata  historical  personages  and  historical 
events,  our  chisel  breaks.  Hence  the  reproach  that 
has  been  addressed  to  Comparative  Mythologists, 
that  they  can  carry  us  to  a  certain  point  only,  but 
that  then  they  leave  us  in  the  lurch,  is  true,  but  it  is 
no  reproach  at  all. — We  wish  to  explain  what  we 
can,  but  we  cannot  explain  all  we  wish. 

Herakles,  Alexander,  Charlemagne. 

Take  such  a  case  as  that  of  Herakles.  His  dis- 
tant solar  origin  will  hardly  be  doubted.  But  as 
soon  as  some  of  his  solar  labours  had  become  popular 
in  Greece,  as  soon  as  Herakles  had  become  a  Greek 
hero,  there  arose  a  demand  for  more  and  more 
Herakles-stories,  whether  they  were  solar  in  their 
origin  or  not'.  Herakles  was  no  longer  a  solar  hero 
only,  but  he  became  what  has  been  called  a  Culture- 
hero,  that  is,  an  ethical  character  who  brought  light 
out  of  night,  who  punished  the  deeds  of  darkness, 
rescued  the  victims  of  violence,  and  was  looked 
upon  as  the  protector  of  law  and  order,  nay  as  the 
founder  of  cities,  and  the  ancestor  of  royal  families 
and  of  whole  clans.  When  such  a  character  had 
once  been  created,  there  sprang  up  ever  so  many 
local  claimants,  and  what  is  told  of  them  need  no 


i]  HERAKLES,  ALEXANDER,   CHARLEMAGNE.  53 

longer  be  mythological  at  all,  but  may  often  have 
been  historical  or  legendary  or  purely  imaginative. 

And  yet  it  may  happen  that  even  these  new  and 
fanciful  stories  retain  some  mythological  reminis- 
cences, and  thus  provoke  explanations  which  in  one 
sense  may  be  quite  right,  but  may  also  be  quite 
wrong,  just  as  if  we  should  mistake  pieces  of  rock 
in  artificial  concrete  for  natural  rock. 

People  who  are  incredulous  on  this  point  should 
read  the  mediaeval  stories  of  Alexander  and  Charle- 
magne to  see  what  havoc  mythology  may  play  with 
history,  or  the  epic  poetry  of  the  Shahnameh  to 
see  how  ancient  physical  mythology  can  be  disguised 
as  bona  fide  history.  Professor  Bloomfield,  in  the 
Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  xvi,  p.  24, 
1893,  nas  sounded  a  note  of  warning  on  this  point 
which  should  not  be  neglected  by  students  of 
mythology. 

'  It  seems  quite  likely,'  he  writes,  '  that  this  de- 
scribes the  striking  of  the  lightning  into  the  ground, 
but  possibly  this  last  feature  of  the  myth  is  not  a  part 
of  the  purely  naturalistic  phase  of  the  legend,  which 
may  at  that  point  have  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
poet,  who,  in  India  as  elsewhere,  would  draw  upon 
the  stores  of  his  imagination  for  the  extension  and 
embellishment  of  myths  of  a  primarily  naturalistic 
character,  combining,  in  accordance  with  the  dictates 
of  his  fancy,  any  features  from  other  legendary 
sources  which  seemed  to  him  suitable  to  the  taste 
of  his  hearers  V 

Mythology  Anomalous. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  whole  character  of 
mythology  is  anomalous,  and  there  is  a  much  deeper 

1  See  also  J.  A.  O.  S.  xv,  p.  185  seq. 


54  MYTHOLOGY    ANOMALOUS.  [chap. 

truth  in  this  than  it  was  meant  to  convey.  The 
very  words  in  which  a  myth  is  embodied  are  full  of 
anomalies.  Mythology  contains  many  ideas  which 
we  can  no  longer  understand,  and  places  before  us 
facts  which  are  certainly  not  in  keeping  with  what 
we  know  of  ancient  times  and  ancient  people,  even 
the  most  savage  and  uncivilised.  If  we  can  discover 
reason  in  some  parts  of  mythology,  we  ought  to  be 
satisfied ;  as  to  our  ever  understanding  the  whole  of 
it,  that  is  out  of  the  question.  Astronomers  have 
brought  Neptune  to  reason,  but  there  are  nebulae  of 
stars  which  have  as  yet  defied  the  power  of  any 
telescope.  It  is  the  same  in  mythology.  We  have 
reduced  a  number  of  anomalies  and  irrationalities 
on  the  dark  firmament  of  mythology  to  order,  and 
we  have  acquired  the  conviction  that  reason  ruled 
even  there.  But  beyond  that  we  cannot  go,  at 
least  not  at  present,  whatever  discoveries  may  be  in 
store  for  future  Herschels,  Leverriers,  and  Adams's. 

Stages  of  Mythology. 
It  was  Kuhn 1  who  first  pointed  out  that  we  could 
distinguish  the  successive  stages  of  civilised  life  in 
their  effect  on  the  mythologies  of  different  nations, 
or  of  the  same  nation  at  different  times.  There 
was  no  doubt  a  hunter  mythology,  a  shepherd,  and 
agricultural,  even  a  maritime  mythology,  but  I  think 
that  Kuhn  has  attempted  to  define  these  periods 
far  too  sharply.  They  cannot  be  fixed  chrono- 
logically, nor  do  they  always  follow  each  other  in 
regular  succession.  As  I  had  tried  to  show  before 
him,  we  have  to  deal  in  mythology  with  phases  of 
development  which  in  different  countries  may  last 

1  Die  Entvvicklungsstufen  der  Mythenbildung,  1874. 


i]  ANOMALOUS    NAMES.  55 

for  a  longer  or  shorter  time.  They  are  not  periods 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  they  are  more  like 
Comte's  three  periods  of  civilisation,  the  offensive,  the 
defensive,  and  the  peaceful.  It  has  even  been  sug- 
gested, though  not  by  Kuhn,  that  some  of  the 
chapters  of  Greek  mythology  reflect  a  time  when 
the  ancestors  of  the  Greeks  were  on  a  still  lower 
stage  than  the  offensive,  when  they  were  in  fact 
cannibals.  I  do  not  deny  the  possibility,  I  only 
wait  for  proofs. 

Anomalous  Names. 

These  anomalies  of  mythology  show  themselves 
not  only  in  the  substance,  but  likewise  in  the  form 
of  mythology,  I  mean  in  the  names  with  which  we 
have  to  deal,  whether  names  of  persons  or  names  of 
places,  of  rivers  or  of  mountains.  At  first  a  name 
was  always  meant  to  be  understood,  otherwise  it 
would  not  have  been  a  name,  but  it  ceased  to  be  so 
when  phonetic  corruption  set  in,  or  when  the  roots 
to  which  a  name  owed  its  existence,  fell  out  of  use. 
This  inevitable  result,  which  can  be  seen  more  or 
less  clearly  in  many  parts  of  the  Aryan  dictionary, 
is  most  perceptible  in  its  mythological  portion.  We 
know  by  sad  experience  that  nearly  all  the  ancient 
mythological  names  are  so  changed  that  they  con- 
veyed hardly  any  meaning  even  to  those  who  used 
them,  while  our  ordinary  etymological  solvents  are 
often  totally  ineffectual  when  applied  to  them. 
What  does  this  prove  ?  Does  it  prove  that  these 
names  had  no  rational  origin  at  all,  no  prakriya, 
as  Sanskrit  grammarians  would  say  1  Is  such  a 
thing  thinkable  ?  Or  does  it  not  clearly  show  that 
these  names  belong  to  a  more  ancient  stratum,  that 


56  ANOMALOUS    NAMES.  [chap. 

they  cannot  be  explained  as  products  of  the  surface 
soil  of  Aryan  speech,  nor  of  the  linguistic  stratum 
immediately  underlying  it,  nay,  that  their  very  roots 
lie  so  deep  that  they  evade  all  the  ordinary  methods 
of  search,  and  that  in  consequence,  the  phonetic  and 
morphological  influences  under  which  they  grew  up 
cannot  be  expected  to  have  been  exactly  the  same 
as  those  which  pervade  later  periods  of  the  history  of 
Aryan  speech.    We  must  learn  to  face  facts  such  as 
they  are,  and  not  imagine  that  by  simply  shutting 
our  eyes  they  will  vanish.    Names  such  as  Agni,  fire, 
in  the  Veda,  or  Vayu,  wind,  or  Surya,  the  sun,  or 
Pra^apati,  lord  of  creatures,  or  Visvakarman,  maker 
of  all  things,  are   easy  enough,  but  for  that  very 
reason  it  would  seem  that,  far  more  than  less  trans- 
parent names,  they  had  resisted  mythological  infec- 
tion and  disintegration.    The  same  applies  in  Greek 
to  such  deities  as  Helios,  the  sun,  Selene,  the  moon, 
Nyx,  the  night ;  or  in  Latin  to  Sol,  Luna,  or  Terra. 
They    are  all    simply   appellative,   they   belong   to 
historic  or  but  slightly  prehistoric  Sanskrit,  Greek, 
and  Latin,  and  they  have  therefore  escaped  more 
easily  the  metamorphoses  and  the  misunderstandings 
of  mythology.     Of  course,  the  older  a  name,  the 
more   liable   it  is   to  phonetic    corruption,   and   in 
consequence    to    mythological    interpretation     and 
misinterpretation.     Even  with  us,  and  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  a  saint  had  generally  to  wait  for  his 
halo    till    contemporary   witnesses    had    ceased    to 
exist.       There   are    no    doubt    exceptions    to    this 
observation,  but  as  a  rule  we   may  say  that   the 
more  ancient  and  the  more   obscure  the  names  of 
mythological    persons,   the   thicker   the    cluster    of 
myths  that  has  grown  up  around  them. 


ij  VEDIC    NAMES.  57 

Vedic  Names. 

Take  such  names  in  Sanskrit  as  Aditi,  Aryaman, 
Indra,  I/a,  Urvasi,  Bibhu,  Kutm,  Tanunapat,  Dadhi- 
kra,  Narasarasa,  Nirn'ti,  Pani,  Par^anya,  Pushan, 
PHsni,  Bri'haspati,  Bhaga,  Matarisvan,  Mitra,  Mitra- 
Varunau,  Yama,  Yaml,  Eaka,  Rudra,  Rodasyau, 
Vanaspati,  Varuna,  Vishnu,  VHshakapi,  /Sukra, 
£una,  &unasirau,  Saranyu,  Sarama,  Sarasvati,  Sini- 
vali,  Soma,  and  many  more,  and  you  will  find  that 
hardly  one  of  them  is  what  I  call  etymologically 
transparent,  tells,  as  it  were,  its  own  tale,  or  could 
have  been  understood  by  people  who  spoke  the 
ordinary  Sanskrit.  Can  we  say  that  this  is  mere 
accident  ? 

Folk-etymologies. 

Several  of  these  names  had  so  completely  lost 
their  true  meaning,  that  artificial  and  altogether 
erroneous  etymologies  had  to  be  assigned  to  them, 
so  that  they  might  convey  once  more  some  kind  of 
meaning  to  their  worshippers.  Thus  Tndra,  instead 
of  being  understood  as  the  giver  of  rain  (ind-u),  was 
derived  from  a  root  meaning  to  rule,  to  be  supreme, 
this  corresponding  to  his  later  character  as  the  first 
among  the  ancient  gods.  This  shows  how  ineradic- 
able the  feeling  was  even  among  ancient  people  that 
every  word  must  have  some  etymological  meaning. 
Every  language  is  full  of  such  etymologies,  commonly 
called  folk-etymologies,  and  they  apply  not  only  to 
proper  names,  but  to  ordinary  words  also.  Thus 
deva,  god,  which  was  really  derived  from  a  root 
which  means  to  be  bright,  was  by  ancient  scholastic 
interpreters  derived  from  another  root  da,  to  give, 
so  as  to  mean  giver  of  gifts  ;  just  as  in  Greek  #eds 


58  FOLK-ETYMOLOGIES.  [cHAF. 

was  derived  by  Herodotus  (II,  52)  from  a  root  0r) 
meaning  to  settle,  because  the  gods  had  made  and 
settled  all  things,  and  by  Plato  (Kratyl.  397)  from 
a  root  meaning  to  run,  because  the  first  gods,  sun 
and  moon,  were  always  seen  moving  and  running. 

Words  without  any  Etymology. 
If  we  ask  how  it  came  to  pass  that  a  word  or 
a  name  should  be  without  any  etymology  in  the  lan- 
guage in  which  it  was  fashioned,  we  must  remember 
that  every  living  language  is  built  up  on  a  succession 
of  lower  strata  of  speech,  of  speech   which  is  no 
longer  living,  that  is,  is  no  longer  understood,  just 
as  a  geological  stratum  which  was  once  full  of  organic 
life,  forms  the  dead  support  of  the  next  stratum. 
The  lower  stratum  may,   however,  here  and  there 
pierce  through  the  superincumbent   soil,  and  may 
with  its  decayed   elements  interpenetrate  the  new 
life  of  a  higher  stratum.    If  that  lower  stratum  were 
completely  lost,  we  should  often  feel  at  a  loss  to 
account    for    such    sporadic    petrifactions   as    have 
found  their  way  into  the  higher  stratum,  but  are 
not  related  to  its  proper  fauna  or  flora.      In   the 
same  way  the  names  of  Yedic  gods  which  cannot 
be  accounted  for,  if  we  are  restricted  to  the  sources 
of  the  Vedic  language,   such  as  we  know  it,  may 
date  from  an  earlier  period,  lost  to   us,   except  in 
a  few  survivals.     This  is  clearly  the  case  in  modern 
languages.  It  would  be  impossible,  with  the  resources 
of  the  French    language,  such  as  we   know   it,   to 
account,  say,  for  such  a  compound  as  Jeudi,  Thurs- 
day, dies  Jovis.     The  living  French  language  has  no 
such  word  as  Jeu  (except  jeu  from  jocus),  nor  any 
materials  out  of  which  it  might  have  formed  such 


i]  WORDS    WITHOUT    ANY    ETYMOLOGY.  59 

a  compound  as  Jeu-di.  The  phonetic  rules  and  the 
syntactic  character  of  such  a  compound  are  not  only 
different  from,  they  are  opposed  to  the  genius  of  the 
present  language  of  France.  If  then  we  were  to 
say  that  to  derive  Jeudi  from  Jovis  dies  was  un- 
scholarlike,  we  should  be  arguing  in  exactly  the 
same  manner  as  when,  in  the  etymological  analysis 
of  ancient  mythological  names,  whether  in  Vedic 
Sanskrit  or  in  Greek  and  Latin,  we  insist  on  the 
strict  observance  of  phonetic  rules  applicable  to 
ordinary  Greek  or  Sanskrit  words. 

Study  of  Mythology  changed. 

If  we  consider  all  these  difficulties  inherent  in 
a  truly  scientific  study  of  mythology,  we  may  well 
understand  why  classical  and  oriental  scholars,  to 
whose  domain  mythology  has  hitherto  belonged, 
should  hesitate  before  they  attempt  to  annex  new 
kingdoms.  The  irregularities  of  written  languages, 
such  as  Greek  and  Sanskrit,  are  quite  enough  for 
them,  without  incurring  new  dangers  in  trying  to 
grapple  with  the  anomalous  nouns  and  verbs  of  Zulu 
or  Suaheli.  Let  others  who  have  greater  talents  and 
greater  courage  undertake  this  work.  There  is 
room  and  plenty  of  work  for  all  of  us,  and  the 
more  thoroughly  the  work  is  done,  the  more  will 
it  benefit  the  important  study  of  mythology.  Even 
work  at  second  hand  may  sometimes  prove  helpful, 
but  original  work  is  better  ;  at  all  events,  if  scholars 
feel  a  preference  for  the  latter,  they  surely  do  not 
deserve  any  blame. 

It  is  quite  true,  no  doubt,  that  mythology,  by 
assuming  these  severely  scientific  airs,  has  lost 
much  of  its  former  charms.     Even  fairy  stories  have 


60  STUDY    OF    MYTHOLOGY    CHANGED. 

not  quite  redeemed  its  character  or  restored  to  it 
its  former  popularity.  But  it  has  gained  a  new 
and  lasting  interest  by  enabling  us  to  recognise 
in  it  an  integral  link  in  the  chain  that  binds  all 
generations  of  men  together,  a  phase  in  the  growth 
of  the  human  mind  that  has  to  be  understood, 
a  period  of  history  full  of  philosophical  and  even 
religious  lessons,  a  subject  worthy  of  the  honest 
labour  of  the  scholar  and  the  serious  reflection  of 
the  philosopher. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ON    THE   PROBLEMS    AND    METHODS   OF    THE    SCIENCE 
OF   MYTHOLOGY. 

The  Three  Schools  of  Mythological  Study. 
There  was  a  time,  some  people  may  think  that 
it  is  not  quite  passed  yet,  when  Greek  and  Roman 
mythology  were  studied  chiefly  in  order  to  enable 
educated  people  to  recognise  the  originals  of  the 
statues  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  great  sculptors  of 
antiquity,  and  to  understand  the  allusions  to  gods, 
goddesses,  heroes,  and  heroines,  which  meet  us  on 
every  page  of  the  ancient  classics  and  of  many  of 
their  modern  imitators.  The  stories  told  of  the 
ancient  gods  and  goddesses  were  considered  as  either 
beautiful  or  disgusting,  but  they  were  accepted, 
such  as  they  were,  and  we  know  how  some  of  our 
greatest  modern  poets  have  derived  their  inspirations 
from  them  and  continue  to  do  so  to  the  present 
day.  Of  course,  the  gods  and  goddesses  were  called 
false  gods  and  false  goddesses,  as  if  there  could  ever 
have  been  true  gods  or  true  goddesses.  But  even 
if  they  were  considered  as  unworthy  of  a  divine 
station,  they  were  accepted  as  something  like  the 
poetical  creations  of  mediaeval  romance,  King 
Arthur,  Alexander,  and  Charlemagne,  or  like  Dr. 
Faust,  Don  Quixote,  and  Werther  in  more  modern 
literature.  The  ancient  gods  and  goddesses  of  Greece 
and  Italy  seemed,  in  fact,  to  possess  a  peculiar  kind 


62       THREE  SCHOOLS  OF  MYTHOLOGICAL  STUDY.       [chap. 

of  life,  something  between  reality  and  unreality  ; 
though  in  some  cases  they  were  actually  recognised, 
as,  for  instance,  by  St.  Augustine,  as  evil  spirits 1, 
not  altogether  to  be  deprived  of  their  right  to  exist, 
however  unworthy  they  might  be  of  the  name  of 
god  or  goddess. 

There  were  other  students  of  mythology  who 
looked  upon  the  ancient  gods  and  goddesses  as  we 
have  a  right  to  look,  if  not  on  King  Arthur, 
Alexander,  and  Charlemagne,  at  least  on  Faust,  Don 
Quixote,  or  Werther,  namely,  as  poetical  creations, 
but  not  without  a  few  grains  of  reality  in  their 
constitution,  as  the  result,  in  fact,  of  that  mixture 
of  Dichtung  und  Wahrheit  with  which  even  his- 
torians must  often  be  satisfied  in  ancient,  nay 
sometimes  in  modern  times  also. 

There  may  have  been  a  Don  Quixote,  whom 
Cervantes  had  in  his  mind  in  writing  his  story; 
there  was  an  Arturus,  the  brave  leader  of  the  Silures, 
a  Dr.  Faustus  at  Erfurt  and  Wittenberg,  and 
a  Werther  at  Wetzlar,  round  whom  tradition  and 
poetry  have  formed  a  cloud  often  difficult  to  pierce. 

Myth  and  History. 
If  we  speak  of  historical  elements  in  mythology, 
historical  is  hardly  the  right  word,  for  history,  in 
our  sense  of  the  word,  did  not  and  could  not  exist 
at  the  time  when  the  names  and  fates  of  real 
persons  were  first  drawn  into  the  stream  of  myth 
and  legend.  We  have  only  to  reflect  for  a  moment 
to  see  that  history,  in  the  sense  of  an  authentic  or 
written  record  of  the  acts  of  real  persons,  whether 
kings  or  heroes,  statesmen  or  poets,  was  impossible 

1  See  also  Milton's  Ode  on  the  Nativity. 


Il]  MYTH    AND    HISTORY.  63 

at  the  time  when  mythology  began  to  grow  and 
spread.  While,  if  we  take  history  in  the  sense  of 
actual  events,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  such  events, 
whether  migrations  or  conquests,  battles  or  murders, 
intrigues  or  betrayals,  could  not  be  known,  whether 
near  or  afar,  except  in  the  form  of  rumour  and 
gossip,  as  Sage  in  fact,  which  is  not  very  far 
removed  from  myth.  With  all  our  newspapers, 
telegrams,  war-correspondents,  parliamentary  reports, 
and  all  the  rest,  what  is  there  known  to  the  people 
at  large  to  enable  a  poet  of  the  people  to  sing,  for 
instance,  the  story  of  the  siege  of  Lucknow  ?  And 
is  it  not  a  fact  that  the  most  poetical  event  of  that 
memorable  siege,  the  story  of  Jessie  Brown  hearing 
the  bagpipes  in  the  far  distance  playing  '  the  Camp- 
bells are  coming,'  has  been  proved  to  be  without 
any  foundation  whatever,  though  at  the  time  it  was 
considered  as  in  the  highest  degree  unpatriotic  to 
express  any  doubt  about  it  ?  What  then  could  the 
poet  of  the  Nibelungen,  whether  the  Klirenberger 
or  any  other  poet  of  the  twelfth  century,  what 
could  the  poets  of  the  Edda-songs,  nay,  what  could 
the  contemporaries  of  Alarich  and  Aetius  know  of 
the  secret  intrigues  at  the  courts  of  Valentinian  and 
Galla  Placidia,  to  enable  them  to  distinguish  the 
events  of  that  time  from  the  mythological  traditions 
referring  to  Siegfried  (Sigurd)  and  Hagen  ? 

Those  who  are  ready  to  discover  historical  elements 
in  mythology  and  epic  poetry  ought  never  to  forget 
that  in  this  marriage  between  myth  and  fact,  myth 
comes  first.  It  is  not  till  a  solar  hero,  call  him 
Herakles,  or  Sigurd,  or  any  other  name,  has  been 
created  that  any  other  real  hero  can  be  called 
Herakles,  or  a  Herakles,  and  his  achievements  be 


64  MYTH    AND    HISTORY.  [chap. 

sung  as  the  achievements  of  Herakles.  In  the 
same  way,  if,  in  the  Nibelungenlied,  the  second 
husband  of  Chriemhild  is  called  Etzel  and  identified 
with  Attila,  king  of  the  Huns,  there  was  an  Atli 
also  in  Norse  mythology  long  before  the  invasion  of 
the  Huns.  There  was  likewise  a  Hruodlandus, 
'  Britannici  limitis  praefectus,'  there  may  have 
been  a  duke  of  the  Silures,  called  Arturus,  but 
most  of  the  deeds  ascribed  to  them  in  mediaeval 
poetry  are  deeds  performed  long  before  their  time 
by  mythological  heroes  whose  very  names  were 
afterwards  forgotten.  Nearly  all  the  heroes  of 
the  Shahnameh,  an  epic  poem  which  in  the  eyes 
of  Persians  represents  the  earliest  history  of  their 
country,  are  known  to  be  corruptions  of  names  of 
legendary  beings  in  the  Avesta,  some  of  whom  can 
be  traced  back  as  far  as  the  hymns  of  the  Veda. 
Let  us  admit  then  that,  as  Schliemann  maintained, 
there  was  at  Hissarlik  a  fortified  place  besieged  and 
conquered  by  the  Greeks,  does  any  one  believe  that 
the  historical  hero,  who  near  the  walls  of  that  for- 
tress performed  the  funeral  games  in  honour  of  his 
friend  Patroklos,  was  the  mythological  hero  who  was 
called  the  son  of  Thetis,  and  who  was  vulnerable, 
like  Siegfried  and  other  solar  heroes,  in  one  place 
only  ?  The  exact  process  by  which  myth  and  story 
are  amalgamated  is,  no  doubt,  extremely  obscure, 
dependent  as  it  is  on  the  memory,  or  rather  the 
forgetfulness,  of  the  people,  and  in  the  end  on 
the  creative  faculty  of  the  poets.  Still,  we  may  be 
certain  that  the  mythological  mould  must  be  there 
first,  before  the  historical  metal,  in  a  more  or  less 
molten  state,  can  be  poured  into  it. 

When  we   examine  the  earliest  mythological  or 


n]  MYTH    AND    HISTORY.  65 

epic  poetry,  we  are  deprived  of  all  means  of  iden- 
tifying historical  elements  that  may  occur  in  it. 
We  can  only  trust  to  a  certain  tact,  acquired  in  the 
study  of  mythology,  to  help  us  to  distinguish  between 
hard  facts  and  more  or  less  pliant  myths.  We 
are  more  favourably  placed  when  we  have  to  deal 
with  epic  poems  which  received  their  final  form  at 
a  time  when  the  events  of  contemporary  history  are 
known  to  us.  The  date  of  the  Nibelungenlied,  as 
we  now  possess  it  in  Middle  High-German,  has  been 
fixed  at  about  1200  a.d.,  that  of  the  Older  Edda  at 
about  1000  a.d.  All  scholars,  however,  seem  agreed 
that  similar  songs  existed  long  before  that  time. 

Heroes. 
We  must  not  forget  that  unless  a  hero  is  a  human 
being  raised  above  the  level  of  humanity,  he  can 
only  be  a  god  brought  down  to  the  level  of  humanity, 
or  a  mixture  of  both.  Tertium  non  datur.  Neither 
spirits,  nor  totems,  nor  fetishes,  will  supply  the 
germs  of  the  race  of  heroes.  The  name,  however, 
when  it  had  once  been  coined,  and  no  one  knows 
how  it  was  coined1,  remained,  just  as  the  name  gods 
remained,  even  when  their  true  hypostasis  had  long 
vanished. 

The  concept  of  a  god  in  the  singular  is  the  most 
impossible  and  contradictory  concept  that  was  ever 
shaped  in  the  human  brain.  It  can  hardly  be  called 
a  concept  at  all,  though  it  is  a  name.  It  is  only  from 
an  historical  point  of  view  that  the  evolution  of  this 
word  becomes  intelligible  and  full  of  interest.  The 
concept  of  the  One  God,  however,  would  seem  to 

1  Prellwitz  derives  i'jpu>s  boldly  from  Sanskrit  sara,  sap,  power. 
VOL.    I.  F 


66  HEROES.  [CHAP. 

have  been  unattainable  except  by  starting  from  the 
concept  of  many  gods  or  agents  of  nature.  The  heno- 
theistic  and  polytheistic  stages  were  both  necessary 
as  preparations  for  the  monotheistic  stage,  but  when 
that  stage  had  been  reached,  when  the  concept 
of  a  God  above  all  gods,  and  lastly  of  God  had  once 
been  realised,  the  gods  in  the  plural  ought,  ipso 
facto,  to  have  vanished.  The  greatest  confusion 
was  raised  and  the  greatest  mischief  done  when 
ancient  and  even  modern  thinkers  imagined  that 
gods  were  really  the  plural  of  God,  and  that  what 
was  applicable  to  the  gods  was  applicable  to  God 
also.  It  was  perhaps  inevitable  that  the  name  of 
the  chief  of  the  old  gods,  whether  Zeus  or  Jehovah, 
should  have  been  retained  as  a  name  of  that  neces- 
sarily nameless  Being  which  we  mean  by  God.  The 
sages  of  Greece  knew  perfectly  well  that  what  had 
been  told  of  Zeus  was  not  applicable  to  God,  and 
yet  they  retained  the  name,  only  stripping  it  as 
much  as  possible  of  all  that  seemed  incongruous 
in  its  new  employment.  The  Jewish  prophets 
also,  who  aspired  after  the  true  God,  and  were  no 
longer  satisfied  simply  with  a  God  above  all  gods, 
nevertheless  clung  to  the  name  of  Jehovah,  only 
removing  from  it  as  much  as  possible  all  that  was 
unworthy  of  the  deity.  Nay,  even  Christian  poets, 
such  as  Dante,  have  not  hesitated  to  use  Giove  in 
the  same  sense,  and  we  know  to  what  perilous 
heresies  the  early  Church  was  exposed  by  speaking 
of  Christ  as  a  god,  or  the  son  of  a  god. 

The  True  Problem  of  Mythology. 

What  we  now  want  to  learn  from  the  study  of 
mythology  is  something  very  different.     We  want 


Il]  THE    TRUE    PROBLEM    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  67 

to  know  how  these  so-called  gods  came  to  exist  at 
all,  and  what  was  the  meaning  of  all  the  facts  and 
circumstances  related  of  them  ?  After  they  had 
been  superseded  by  the  true  God,  was  there  no  sub- 
stance at  all  left,  no  real  personality  behind  all  their 
personal  adventures  ?  This  question  has  often  been 
asked,  and  it  is  a  question  which  has  assumed  very 
great  importance  in  our  own  time,  when  the  feeling 
of  the  solidarity  of  the  human  race  has  grown  so 
much  stronger  than  it  was  formerly. 


Our  True  Interest  in  Mythology. 

The  ancient  Greeks  are  no  longer  mere  curiosities 
in  our  eyes,  nay  even  the  ancient  inhabitants  of 
India  are  not  altogether  outside  the  sphere  of  our 
sympathy.  They  form  an  integral  part  of  that 
humanity  to  which  we  ourselves  belong.  What 
happened  to  them,  has,  in  one  sense,  happened  to 
us  ;  what  they  thought  must  be  thinkable  to  us  ; 
what  they  believed  cannot  be  altogether  different 
from  what  we  believe.  We  may  have  advanced, 
just  as  our  God  has  advanced  beyond  Jehovah,  and 
as  Jehovah  had  advanced  beyond  the  Elohim  of 
the  Gentiles,  but  there  must  be  continuity  in  all 
the  strata  of  thought  as  there  is  in  the  strata 
of  the  earth.  Otherwise  humanity  would  cease  to 
be  an  object  of  scientific  interest,  each  individual 
would  be  an  ephemeral  moth,  language  a  mere 
sound,  thought  a  mere  dream. 

We  may  well  understand  therefore  why  the  ques- 
tion of  mythology  should  have  occupied  modern 
philosophers  even  more  seriously  than  ancient 
thinkers.     We  want  to   know    of  what    stuff  the 

F  2 


68  OUR    TRUE    INTEREST    IN    MYTHOLOGY.         [chap. 

gods  were  made  who  were  believed  in  by  the 
ancient  Aryan  speakers,  and  what  is  the  meaning 
of  the  credible  and  incredible  stories  told  about 
them.  The  two  questions  are  really  inseparable, 
and  their  answer,  involving  the  descent  of  the 
human  mind,  seems  to  me  to  concern  us  more  even 
than  that  of  the  descent  of  man,  as  a  mere  animal. 
Suppose  that  men  could  be  proved  to  be  the  lineal 
descendants  of  some  unknown  Simian  species,  that 
would  after  all  concern  our  outside  only l.  Even  if 
we  had  to  think  of  our  ancestors  as  adorned  with 
tails,  this  need  not  deprive  them  of  our  sympathy. 
But  if  it  could  be  proved  that  we  were  descended 
from  idiots  and  maniacs — and  many  of  the  stories 
of  the  ancient  gods  are  the  stories  of  maniacs — we 
might  justly  feel  nervous  as  to  atavistic  influences. 

Disease  of  Language. 

The  question  of  mythology  has  become  in  fact 
a  question  of  psychology,  and,  as  our  psyche  be- 
comes objective  to  us  chiefly  through  language,  a 
question  of  the  Science  of  Language.  This  will 
explain  why,  when  trying  to  explain  the  inmost 
nature  of  mythology,  I  called  it  a  Disease  of  Lan- 
guage rather  than  of  Thought.  The  expression  was 
startling,  and  it  was  meant  to  be  startling,  in  order 
to  rouse  attention,  and  possibly  opposition.  I  think 
it  has  done  both,  and  so  far  it  has  done  good.  But 
after  I  had  fully  explained  in  my  Science  of  Thought 
that  language  and  thought  are  inseparable,  and 
that  a  disease  of  language  is  therefore  the  same 

1  See  Sir  Walter  L.  Buller,  Illustrations  of  Darwin  (1895), 
p.  103. 


Il]  DISEASE    OF    LANGUAGE.  69 

as  a  disease  of  thought,  no  doubt  ought  to  have 
remained  as  to  what  I  meant.  To  represent  the 
supreme  God  as  committing  every  kind  of  crime, 
as  being  deceived  by  men,  as  being  angry  with  his 
wife  and  violent  with  his  children,  is  surely  proof 
of  a  disease,  of  an  unusual  condition  of  thought,  or, 
to  speak  more  clearly,  of  real  madness.  It  has  been 
supposed  that  by  disease  of  language  I  meant  no 
more  than  certain  well-known  misapprehensions,  such 
as  /xrjXa,  flocks,  for  [xf}\a,  apples,  la  tour  Saint  Vrain 
(Verena)  changed  to  la  tour  sans  venin.  These 
cases  form  a  very  small  section  of  mythologic  patho- 
logy, and  they  owe  their  popularity  chiefly  to  the 
fact  that  they  are  amusing  and  easily  intelligible. 
But  I  meant  much  more  by  a  disease  of  language. 
I  look  on  the  use  of  an  epithet  as  a  subject,  of  an 
adjective  as  a  substantive,  of  deva,  bright,  as  deva, 
god,  and  of  a  plural  devas,  gods,  as  symptoms 
of  a  far  more  serious  disease  of  language.  I  have 
ventured  to  ascribe  even  scientific  words  such  as 
light,  warmth,  electricity,  to  the  same  class  of  un- 
sound words,  and  I  quite  agree  with  R.  von  Mayer, 
who  declared  that  they  were  no  better  than  the 
gods  of  Greece. 

The  cases  of  diseased  language  due  to  a  mere 
misunderstanding,  to  false  etymology,  to  wrong  pro- 
nunciation, and  similar  accidents,  are  curious  no 
doubt,  but  they  are  very  slight  complaints,  and  do 
not  touch  the  deepest  springs  of  mythology.  No 
thoughtful  critic  could  have  misunderstood  what 
I  meant,  and  I  am  glad  to  see  that  Mr.  Horatio 
Hale,  the  Nestor  of  scientific  ethnologists,  has  fully 
entered  into  my  thoughts.  '  The  expression  "  a  disease 
of  language  "  was  too  sweeping,'  he  writes,  '  but  it 


-JO  DISEASE    OF    LANGUAGE.  [CHAP. 

comprises  a  large  measure  of  truth  V  He  then  pro- 
ceeds to  give  some  very  interesting  illustrations  of 
that  peculiar,  but  slight  disease  of  language  which 
is  due  to  misunderstanding.  A  few  specimens  may 
be  interesting. 

Iroquois  Stories. 

'  When  four  hundred  years  ago  the  confederacy 
of  the  five  (afterwards  six)  Iroquois  nations  was 
established,  the  three  leading  personages  were  Hia- 
watha (Hayonwatha),  Dekanawidah  (Tekanawita), 
and  Atotarho.  They  were  historical  characters,  but 
they  soon  became  the  subject  of  mythological  tales, 
growing  out  of  the  perversion  of  native  terms. 
Atotarho,  a  participle  of  otarhon,  signifies  en- 
tangled, probably  one  of  the  many  clan  names 
belonging  to  his  gens.  But  owing  to  his  fierce 
character  the  common  people  speak  of  him  as  a 
terrible  wizard,  whose  head,  in  lieu  of  hair,  was 
covered  with  an  entangled  mass  of  living  serpents. 

'Hiawatha's  name,  Hayonwatha,  derived  from 
ayonni,  i.  e.  wampum  belt,  and  katha,  to  make, 
was  likewise  one  of  many  clan  names,  but  it  soon 
led  to  the  tradition  that  it  was  Hiawatha  who 
invented  wampum,  the  Indian  shell  money  and 
mnemonic  symbol,  an  invention,  as  proved  by  the 
mound  relics,  that  was  in  use  for  centuries  before 
his  birth. 

'The  third,  Dekanawidah,  the  proudest  among 
the  founders  and  members  of  the  League,  is  said  to 
have   in  a  public  speech   forbidden  the  use  of  his 


1  Journal  of  American  Folklore,  vol.  iii,  No.  X.      '  Above  ' 
and  '  Below.' 


Il]  IROQUOIS    STORIES.  71 

name  by  any  of  his  successors.  This  was  the  general 
custom,  and  was  called  "  the  repeated  resurrection 
of  a  chief."  Thus  it  happened  that  in  Indian  meta- 
phor, Dekanawidah  was  said  to  have  "  buried  him- 
self" in  order  to  avoid  this  political  resurrection. 
John  Buck  (Kanawati),  the  leading  Onondaga  chief, 
told  Mr.  Horatio  Hale,  "  Some  of  our  people  will  tell 
you  that  Dekanawidah  dug  a  grave  and  buried  him- 
self in  it."  But  they  do  not  understand  what  the 
saying  means.' 

This  shows  what  excellent  service  ethnologists 
might  render  to  the  study  of  Comparative  Mytho- 
logy, if  instead  of  misunderstanding  or  professing 
to  misunderstand  a  metaphorical  expression  such  as 
disease  of  language,  they  would  collect  misunder- 
stood metaphors  among  Onondagas  and  other  savage 
races.  It  is  true  that  such  instances  touch  but  the 
skirt  of  Comparative  Mythology,  still  their  expla- 
nation helps  toward  the  solution  of  graver  problems. 

Mythology  as  a  Psychological  Problem. 

What  we  must  bear  in  mind  is  that  mythology 
belongs  no  longer  to  classical  scholarship  and  the 
Beaux  arts  only,  but  has  become  one  of  the  most 
important  problems  of  psychology.  We  have  to  ask 
the  question  whether  the  mind  of  man  was  really  so 
constituted  that  it  could  create  the  idea  of  gods  as 
superhuman  and  omnipotent  beings,  and  then  ascribe 
to  them  stories  such  as  are  ascribed  to  Zeus  and 
Here,  Apollon,  Ares,  and  Aphrodite.  Let  us  admit 
that  the  prevalence  of  cannibalism  may  be  pleaded 
as  a  circonstance  attenuante  for  the  strange 
appetite  of  Kronos  or  Demeter  ;  but  that  Zeus  should 
have  suspended  his  wife  from  the  sky,  with  chains 


72      MYTHOLOGY  AS  A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  PKOBLEM.     [chap. 

round  her  hands,  and  two  anvils  fastened  to  her 
feet,  that  he  should  have  taken  his  son  by  the  foot 
and  dashed  him  headlong  from  the  sky,  till,  after 
falling  for  a  whole  day,  he  alighted  with  the  setting 
sun  on  the  island  of  Lemnos,  and  remained  a  cripple 
for  life  ;  nay,  that  this  very  god,  Hephaistos,  should 
be  called  the  son  of  Zeus  and  Here,  and  in  another 
place  be  represented  as  the  son  of  Here  alone,  born 
from  her  hip,  and  that,  in  order  to  spite  her  husband 
who  had  produced  Athene,  fully  arrayed,  out  of  his 
own  head — all  these  are  things  which  the  Greeks, 
however  far  back  we  trace  them,  could  never  have 
witnessed,  nay  which,  without  some  provocation,  no 
human  brain  could  ever  have  conceived,  even  in 
Bedlam.  And  this  is  not  all.  Hesiod  tells  us  that 
Metis,  the  first  wife  of  Zeus,  when  she  was  with 
child,  was  kept  imprisoned  by  her  husband  within 
his  own  body,  that  she  might  tell  him  what  was 
good  and  what  was  bad.  Her  unborn  child  was 
Athene,  and  when  she  came  to  be  born,  her  birth 
had  to  take  place  from  the  head  of  Zeus.  Here  we 
can  see,  no  doubt,  a  hidden  meaning,  still  the  myth 
that  conveys  it  remains  as  monstrous  as  ever.  It  is 
easy  to  say  that  all  these  are  fables,  but  that  is 
begging  the  whole  question.  It  is  easy  to  say  that 
the  Greeks  knew  such  things  to  be  untrue  or  fabu- 
lous. Yes,  but  the  question  we  have  to  answer  is, 
what  is  a  fab u la,  i.  e.  a  saying,  and  how  did  it  arise  ? 
If  all  myths  are  irrational,  how  could  rational  beings 
have  invented  them  ?  We  may  admit  an  infantia 
of  our  race,  we  cannot  admit  a  period  of  dementia 
at  the  beginning  of  an  evolutionary  process  of  which 
we  ourselves  are  integral  links,  if  not  the  last 
results. 


n]  THE    HYPONOIA    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  73 

The  Hyponoia  of  Mythology. 

All  this  was  felt  by  ancient  philosophers  also, 
though  perhaps  not  so  keenly  as  by  ourselves.  And 
however  they  might  differ  in  their  views  about 
mythology,  they  mostly  agreed  in  suspecting  that 
myths  meant  originally  something  different  from 
what  they  seem  to  mean,  that  there  was  in  them  in 
fact  a  Hyponoia,  an  under-thought,  a  true  intent, 
a  rational  meaning,  that  the  gods  were  not  mere 
creations  of  fancy,  and  the  stories  about  them  not 
mere  ravings.  But  even  after  it  had  been  admitted 
that  there  was  some  reason  in  all  the  unreason  of  the 
myths  of  the  ancients,  it  remained  a  moot  point  what 
that  reason,  what  the  rationale  of  mythology  really 
was,  and  opinions  diverged  in  every  direction,  among 
ancient  as  well  as  among  modern  scholars.  It  is 
a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  attempt  to 
rationalise  the  mythologies  of  the  ancient  world  is 
a  mere  fancy  of  modern  philosophers,  and  that  the 
ancients  were  satisfied  with  their  fables,  such  as 
they  were  handed  down  to  them  from  father  to  son. 

Greek  Views  on  the  Meaning  of  Mythology. 

Not  only  in  India  but  in  Greece  also  philosophers 
knew  perfectly  well  that  nothing  that  was  infamous 
among  men  could  be  considered  true  or  honourable, 
when  told  of  the  gods,  though  it  might  be  true  of 
what  was  originally  represented  by  the  gods.  They 
actually  coined  a  special  word  aWrjyopLa,  allegory, 
meaning  the  description  of  one  thing  under  the 
image  of  another.  As  early  as  the  sixth  century 
b.  c,  Metrodoros  of  Lampsakos  declared  that  Aga- 
memnon was  meant  for  the  ether  (' kya^i^vova  rov 


74   GKEEK  VIEWS  ON  THE  MEANING  OF  MYTHOLOGY,   [chap. 

aldepa  MyjTpohcopos  elirev  aXA/^yopiKaJs).  Plutarch 
tells  us  that  the  Greeks  allegorised  or  interpreted 
Kronos  as  chronos,  time,  and  that  in  the  same  way 
the  sun  (^Xios)  was  recognised  by  them  in  Apollon. 
If  any  comparative  mythologist  were  to  venture  to 
say  this  now,  what  an  outcry  there  would  be  against 
such  a  sacrilege  against  the  genius  of  Greece  !  It 
is  true  that  even  those  philosophers  who  see  in  the 
Greek  gods  nothing  but  deified  men  have  likewise 
a  powerful  authority  in  Euhemeros,  who  said  he 
had  discovered,  if  not  the  corpse,  at  least  the  tomb 
of  Zeus  at  Knossos.  This  remedy  was  really  worse 
than  the  evil  which  it  was  meant  to  cure. 

The  best  recognised  interpretations,  however, 
among  the  Greeks  were  the  ethical  and  the 
physical.  The  former  saw,  for  instance,  in  Athene 
the  representative  of  wTisdom,  in  Ares  that  of  un- 
wisdom, the  latter  tried  to  see  very  much  what  we 
do,  namely,  physical  phenomena  represented  by 
divine  personalities. 

The  Gods  as  representing  the  Prominent  Phenomena 
of  Nature. 

Leaving  aside  all  minor  questions,  all  merely 
fanciful  theories,  it  may  be  asserted  that  at  present 
nearly  all  serious  students  of  mythology  are  agreed 
on  this  fundamental  principle  that  the  gods  were 
originally  personified  representatives  of  the 
most  prominent  phenomena  of  nature1,  that 
what  we  look  upon  as  natural  events  were  taken  as 
the  acts  of  these  representatives,   and  that  when 

1  Plato,    Kratylos,    397   c,    says:   &alvoi>Tai   p.01   ol   npuToi  twk 

ai>dpa)TT(ov  twv  nepl  ttjv  'EAXa8a  tovtovs  povovs   Beoiis  rjyfiaBai  ovanep   vvv 
iroWoi  tcov  fiapftdpav,  rjXiov  koi  at\j')vr)v  ndi  yr}i>  Ka\  aarpa  kcu  ovpauov. 


Il]         GODS  AS  PROMINENT  PHENOMENA  OF  NATURE.        75 

once  a  taste  had  been  created  for  such  marvellous 
stories  as  would  naturally  arise  when  the  tremendous 
workings  of  nature  had  to  be  described  as  the  acts 
of  individuals,  similar  stories  were  readily  invented, 
even  when  there  was  no  real  excuse  for  them. 
When  gods  and  goddesses  had  once  been  created, 
and  natural  phenomena  had  once  been  changed 
into  supernatural  achievements  of  the  gods,  and 
when  a  belief  had  been  fostered  that  the  highest 
excellence  reached  by  human  beings  was  surpassed 
by  the  power  of  these  gods,  it  would  be  perfectly 
intelligible  that  the  achievements  of  real  human 
agents,  of  powerful  heroes  and  beautiful  heroines, 
might  have  been  so  exaggerated  as  to  raise  them 
almost  or  altogether  to  the  rank  of  the  gods.  It 
might  then  happen  also  that  stories  current  about 
gods  and  heroes  were  told  about  real  historical 
persons,  just  as  in  modern  times  good  sayings  whose 
authors  are  forgotten,  are,  without  hesitation,  told 
of  living  men  who  seem  likely  to  have  uttered  them. 

The  gods  being  once  given,  we  can  account  for 
goddesses,  for  heroes  and  heroines.  It  is  the  gods 
who  require  explanation,  and  we  know  now  with 
perfect  certainty  that  in  their  first  apparition  they 
were  simply  the  agents  postulated  as  behind  the 
most  striking  phenomena  of  nature.  Whoever 
holds  that  opinion  is  on  our  side,  however  much  he 
may  differ  from  us  on  minor  points.  Whoever 
differs  from  it  must  be  prepared  to  show  from  what 
other  source  the  so-called  gods  or  Devas  could  have 
sprung. 

The  Weather  and  the  Seasons. 

If  writers  unacquainted  with  the  little  that  is  left 
us  of  the  thoughts  and  conversations  of  people  before 


76  THE    WEATHER    AND    THE    SEASONS.  [chap. 

the  existence  of  anything  that  can  be  called  litera- 
ture, whether  written  or  unwritten,  go  on  declaring 
that  those  ancient  people  could  not  have  been  such 
fools  as  to  talk  of  nothing  but  the  weather — to  ask 
continually,  tl  Zeus  iroiei ;  '  What  is  Zeus  doing  ? ' — 
are  there  no  such  fools  even  now  ?  The  conversation 
of  peasants,  as  it  is  in  some  of  our  out  of  the  way 
villages,  or  as  it  was  but  a  few  generations  ago, 
would  hardly  display  a  much  greater  variety.  Nay, 
even  in  the  higher  classes  conversation  about  the 
weather  seems  to  me  to  occupy  no  inconsiderable 
share,  whether  among  sportsmen,  or  sailors,  or  land- 
lords. We  ourselves  may  talk  of  times  and  seasons 
as  if  they  meant  nothing  but  sunshine  and  rain.  But 
to  the  ancients  who  lived  on  the  soil  and  to  whom 
labour  meant  chiefly  the  labour  bestowed  on  the 
soil,  seasons  were  really  what  their  name  implied, 
sationes  or  sowings.  On  the  success  of  each 
sowing  depended  the  life  not  only  of  the  sower,  but 
of  his  children  and  his  cattle.  To  know  the  times 
and  seasons  was,  at  that  early  time,  to  know  every- 
thing ; — to  be  a  weather  prophet  was  to  be  a  prophet. 

On  this  point  we  owe  much  to  Mannhardt,  who  has 
shown  again  and  again  what  an  important  element 
agriculture  played  in  the  religion  and  the  mythology 
of  the  ancients,  and  how  natural  it  was  that  the 
worship  of  Demeter  should  have  occupied  so  pro- 
minent a  place  in  the  religious  mysteries  of  Greece. 

To  know  whether  there  would  be  rain  or  shine, 
whether  it  was  safe  to  travel  by  land  or  by  water, 
was  often  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  whole 
families  and  villages.  It  is  not  so  extraordinary, 
then,  that  people  should  have  talked  about  all  this. 

And  now  we  must  remember  what  was  the  nature 


Il]  THE    WEATHER    AND    THE    SEASONS.  77 

of  their  language  ?  It  was  such  that  when  we  speak 
of  sky,  wind,  thunder,  and  rain,  they  would  and 
they  could  only  speak  of  agents,  of  a  Lighter,  a 
Blower,  a  Thunderer,  a  Rainer,  that  is,  of  agents, 
of  bright  agents  (deva).  And  what  are  these  bright 
agents  but  their  gods?  Fond  of  mystery  as  un- 
educated people  are,  they  invented  little  saws  and 
sayings,  proverbs  and  riddles,  about  times  and 
seasons.  Does  not  Herakleitos  mention  the  seasons 
among  the  phenomena  that  led  to  the  conception  of 
gods  ?  does  not  even  St.  Paul  (Acts  xiv.  1 7)  appeal 
to  the  rain  from  heaven  and  the  fruitful  seasons  as 
leading  the  heathen  on  to  a  knowledge  of  God  ? 

Saws  about  "Weather. 

Have  we  not  such  sayings  even  now  1  such  as  : 
'Rain  before  seven,  shine  before  eleven,'  'The  evening 
grey  and  morning  red  make  the  shepherd  don  his 
plaid,'  '  The  evening  red  and  morning  grey  are  the 
sign  of  a  very  fine  day,'  '  A  rainbow  in  the  morning 
is  the  shepherd's  warning,'  'A  rainbow  at  night  is 
the  shepherd's  delight,' '  Three  white  frosts  and  then 
rain,'  '  A  green  Yule  makes  a  fat  kirkyard,'  '  March 
winds  and  April  showers  bring  forth  May  flowers,' 
'  If  it  rains  on  St.  Swithin,  it  will  rain  for  forty 
days.'  Any  old  peasant  woman  would  know  a 
hundred  more  of  these  saws,  in  fact  their  permanent 
stock  of  wisdom,  whether  on  the  weather,  or  on 
food,  on  health  and  sickness,  on  law  and  justice, 
nay,  on  religion  and  morality  also,  consisted,  and 
still  consists,  of  nothing  but  these  short  saws,  sayings, 
sentences,  maxims,  or  whatever  we  like  to  call  them, 
sometimes  metrical,  rhythmical,  or  rhymed,  but 
always  in  a  form  that  would  assist  the  memory  in 


78  SAWS    ABOUT    WEATHER.  [chap. 

producing  them  whenever  they  seemed  to  be  wanted. 
At  a  time  therefore  when  morning,  evening,  summer 
and  winter,  wind  and  rain  were  still  spoken  of  as 
doing  this,  and  bringing  that,  in  fact  as  personal 
agents,  when  the  wind  was  the  heavenly  child  (der 
Wind,  der  Wind,  das  himmlische  Kind),  the  rain  a 
traveller  (Rain,  rain,  go  to  Spain),  the  stars  unknown 
friends  (Twinkle,  twinkle,  little  star,  how  I  wonder 
what  you  are),  stories  would  spring  up  everywhere, 
and  most  of  all  when  children,  who  learnt  these 
sayings  long  before  they  understood  a  word  of  them, 
asked  their  grandmothers  who  the  heavenly  child 
was,  and  why  the  rain  travelled  to  Spain.  Grannies 
would  have  to  supply  all  that  was  needed,  and  with 
them  the  heavenly  child  would  naturally  become 
a  young  prince,  and  the  traveller  across  the  sea 
a  fearful  giant  and  all  the  rest.  Having  once  heard 
these  stories  of  a  grandmother  or  an  old  nurse,  the 
children  would  clamour  for  them  again  and  again, 
and  woe  to  the  story-tellers  if  they  forgot  anything 
or  made  any  change.  The  children  would  insist  on 
having  the  old  story,  and  would  repeat  it  word  for 
word  among  themselves  till  it  became  as  settled  as 
a  chapter  of  the  Bible.  We  shall  see  that  many  of 
these  sayings  were  preserved  in  the  form  of  riddles, 
and  that  these  ancient  riddles  often  became  the 
sources  of  ancient  mythology. 

Historical  Traditions. 
But  it  is  said,  with  a  certain  amount  of  plausibility, 
that  these  ancient  races  must  have  remembered  also 
something  else,  some  real  heroes,  some  real  battles, 
and  that  they  would  have  talked  and  sung  of  them 
rather  than  of  the  battle  between  light  and  darkness, 


Il]  HISTORICAL    TRADITIONS.  79 

between  day  and  night,  between  sunshine  and  rain, 
between  spring  and  winter.     So  it  seems,  but  it  has 
been  shown  that  even  in  our  own  time  nothing  is 
so  striking  as  the  forgetfulness  of  the  people,  wmere 
there  is  no  printed  literature  to  keep  up  the  memory 
of  great  events.     Experiments  have  been  made,  and 
it  was  found  that  peasants  living  near  Leipzig  know 
nothing  of  the  great  battle,  except  what  they  may 
have  learnt  at  school.    I  myself  heard  an  old  woman 
assuring  her  friends  that  after  Waterloo  Napoleon 
had  been  hiding  in  England   for  many  years,  and 
had  at  last  come  back  to  Paris  to  fight  the  Germans. 
To  test  the  retentiveness  of  the  memory  of  peasants 
similar  experiments  have  been  made  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  great  battlefields  of  Frederick  the 
Great.     The  people  all  knew  some  anecdote,  more 
or  less  mythical,  of  the    Olle    Fritze,    but    of  the 
battles  near  their  own  villages,  of  the  position  of 
the  armies,  of  the  flight  of  the  enemy,  of  acts  of 
valour  and  all  the  rest,  they  knew  nothing  at  all. 
Places   are   shown  where  the  king  is  supposed  to 
have  jumped   on  horseback  over  a  river  which  no 
one  but  an  old  heathen  god  or  a  hero  could  ever 
have  jumped,  that  is  to  say,  popular  legends  were 
beginning  to  absorb  historical  reality. 

Halm,  who  for  the  same  purpose  tested  the 
memory  of  the  people  of  Albania  with  regard  to 
the  great  events  in  their  recent  history,  found  it 
a  complete  blank.  And  what  they  did  know  of 
Skanderbeg,  their  great  hero,  was  here  too  purely 
legendary  and  mythical.  They  showed  the  foot- 
prints of  his  charger  on  a  rock  on  which  the  national 
hero  had  alighted,  from  a  tower  of  his  fortress — all 
the  rest  was  as  if  it  had  never  happened. 


80  HISTORICAL    TRADITIONS.  [chap. 

Common  and  uneducated  people  have  their  own 
tastes.  We  have  to  study  them,  and  not  to  measure 
their  taste  by  our  own.  It  is  well  known  that  not 
only  saws  and  stories,  but  questions  and  answers 
also,  mostly  in  the  form  of  riddles,  formed  an 
important  part  of  the  floating  conversational  litera- 
ture of  the  people.  There  are  voluminous  collections 
of  such  riddles,  both  ancient  and  modern,  and  in 
the  case  of  many  of  them  it  is  difficult  to  say 
whether  they  are  new  or  old  ;  for  neither  their 
language  nor  their  contents  have  hitherto  received 
the  attention  which  they  deserve. 

Riddles. 

I  called  attention  in  one  of  my  former  books  to 
the  importance  of  riddles  for  helping  us  to  explain 
the  origin  of  many  a  myth,  and  the  fact  that 
M.  Victor  Henry  arrived  independently  at  the  same 
conclusion  was  to  me  most  welcome,  as  tending  to 
confirm  the  truth  of  my  observation.  This  spon- 
taneous agreement  required  no  explanation  or  apology 
from  him,  for  in  these  matters  the  question  of  priority 
has  no  place,  and,  as  I  have  found  out  since,  I  was 
myself  anticipated  by  Russian  scholars,  such  as 
Afanasief,  Orest  Miller,  and  others,  who  long  before 
me  had  called  attention  to  the  importance  of  riddles 
for  mythological  studies. 

Origin  of  Riddles. 

Some  of  these  riddles  seem  to  arise  quite  spon- 
taneously.    Nothing  was  more  natural  for  the  ancient 
Aryas  than  to  speak  of  the  rising  sun  as  the  child 
of  the  morning,  and  of  the  setting  sun  as  the  child  of 
the  evening.     Nor  did  it  require  any  poetical  effort 


n]  ORIGIN    OF    RIDDLES.  8 1 

to  speak  of  the  two  as  twins,  and  as  the  children  of 
day  and  night.  But  from  another  point  of  view  the 
day  might  be  called  the  offspring,  which  would  mean 
no  more  than  the  product  of  the  rising  sun,  and  the 
night  the  offspring  of  the  setting  sun.  Thus  the 
riddle  was  ready  at  hand.  Even  a  savage  might  be 
tempted  to  ask,  How  can  the  sun  beget  his  parents  ? 
And  this  question  is  actually  asked  in  one  of  the 
hymns  of  the  Big-veda  (I,  95,  4)  :  'Who  can  com- 
prehend that  hidden  god  (Agni)  ?  The  young  child 
has  given  birth  to  his  mothers.' 

The  epithet  hidden,  here  applied  to  Agni  (nmya), 
might  be  translated  by  enigmatical,  puzzling, 
mysterious. 

And  as  soon  as  one  puzzle  of  this  kind  has  been 
started,  it  is  soon  followed  by  others.  We  have  only 
to  remember  that  the  rising  sun  may  be  called  not 
only  the  offspring  of  the  morning,  but  likewise  the 
child  of  the  night,  as  rising  from  the  lap  of  the  night, 
while  the  setting  sun  may  be  conceived  not  only  as  the 
offspring  of  the  evening,  but  likewise  as  the  son  and 
heir  of  the  whole  day.  That  being  so,  the  question 
would  soon  be  asked  why  the  mother  of  the  rising  sun, 
the  night,  does  not  suckle  her  own  child,  but  leaves 
it  to  be  attended  by  the  day,  whereas  the  mother  of 
the  setting  sun,  the  day,  leaves  her  child  to  the 
care  of  the  night.  Need  we  wonder  then  that  one 
of  the  poets  of  the  Kig-veda  (I,  95,  1)  should  say  : 
'  The  two  sisters  of  different  aspects  wander  along  ; 
the  one  suckles  the  young  of  the  other  V  With  the 
one   the   child  is  golden  (sun),   moving  by  himself, 


1  Anyanya  can  hardly  be  meant  for  anything  but  anyanya- 
syai. 

VOL.  I.  G 


82  ORIGIN    OF    RIDDLES.  [chap. 

with  the  other  it  is  seen  bright  and  full  of  fine 
splendour  (moon).  Very  soon  another  situation 
involving  another  riddle  follows.  The  two  sisters 
and  mothers  who  were  said  to  be  suckling  each  the 
child  of  the  other,  are  now  represented  as  suckling 
both  the  same  child.  Thus  we  read,  Rv.  I,  96,  5, 
dhapayete  sisum  ekam  samiZn,  the  two  together 
suckle  the  one  child,  and  there  is  a  hint  at  something 
like  jealousy  between  the  two  sisters,  when  we  read 
that  one  sister  tries  to  destroy  the  colour  or  beauty 
of  the  other,  vamam  amemyane. 

From  such  materials  riddles  sprang  up  at  a  very 
early  time.  We  meet  with  them  in  such  hymns  as 
I,  152  of  the  Rig-veda,  and  we  learn  from  the 
Brahmanas  that  at  certain  sacrifices  riddles  formed 
a  recognised  amusement  of  the  priests. 

There  was,  however,  a  very  serious  condition 
attached  to  the  guessing  of  some  of  these  riddles, 
that  whoever  could  not  guess  them  should  have  his 
head  cut  off.  This  seems  a  strange  measure,  and 
yet  we  find  just  the  same  condition  in  India  (Upani- 
shads),  in  Greece  (Sphinx),  in  Iceland  (Edda),  and 
among  the  Slaves  l. 

Riddles,  though  rather  poor  ones,  are  mentioned 
in  the  Old  Testament  -,  and  we  meet  with  a  large 

1  Krek,  Slav.  Literaturgeschichte,  pp.  266,  299. 

2  If  I  call  Samson's  riddle  poor,  it  is  because  no  one  could  guess 
it  who  did  not  know  the  facts  to  which  it  referred.  Samson 
had  actually  seen  the  carcase  of  a  lion,  and  in  it  a  swarm  of  bees 
and  honey.  This  he  put  in  the  form  of  a  riddle,  '  Out  of  the 
eater  (lion)  came  forth  meat,  and  out  of  the  strong  one  came 
forth  sweetness  (honey).'  Samson  was  quite  right  in  saying 
that  no  one  could  have  guessed  his  riddle  unless  he  had 
ploughed  with  his  heifer.  But  we  find  similar  riddles  referring 
to  actual  facts  elsewhere.     Gestr,  for  instance,  had  seen  a  dead 


Il]  ORIGIN    OF    RIDDLES.  83 

number  of  what  may  be  called  mythological  riddles 
among  the  Finno-Ugrian  tribes  of  the  present  day. 
Among  ever  so  many  races  we  find  not  only  finished 
riddles,  but  words,  phrases,  and  sayings  which,  if 
literally  interpreted,  would  at  once  be  changed  into 
a  myth.  The  poems  of  Rlickert,  one  of  our  most 
thoughtful  German  poets,  are  full  of  these  mytho- 
logical germs.  '  Die  Morgenrothe  wirkt  ihr  Kleid,' 
he  says,  without,  as  it  would  seem,  being  aware 
that  there  was  anything  strange  in  this  utterance. 
'The  Dawn  embroiders  her  gown,'  would  be  quite 
intelligible  in  English  also,  without  any  understood 
reference  whether  to  Penelope  weaving  at  her  loom, 
or  the  three  Weird  Sisters  spinning  their  thread. 
Among  Russian  riddles  quoted  by  Mannhardt,  I.e., 
p.  216,  we  find  a  riddle,  'What  is  the  red  gown 
before  the  forest  and  before  the  grove  ? '  And  among 
the  Lets  we  find  a  complete  story  in  their  popular 
songs  relating  how  the  Sun-daughter  (the  Dawn) 
hangs  her  red  gown  on  the  great  oak-tree,  an 
expression  which  hereafter  will  help  us  to  under- 
stand the  golden  fleece  of  Hello  (Surya)  hung  on 
the  oak-tree  in  Aia. 

horse  lying  on  the  ice,  and  a  worm  on  the  carcase,  both  being 
carried  away  by  the  stream  towards  the  sea,  and  he  asked 
King  Heidreck  the  riddle  :  '  I  saw  the  field-increaser  of  the 
earth  (water,  ice)  moving  along,  a  dead  sat  on  a  dead  (a  dead 
horse  on  the  dead  ice),  a  blind  one  was  riding  towards  the  sea 
on  a  blind  one  (the  blind  worm  on  the  carcase),  but  the  horse 
was  lifeless.' 

There  are  several  more  riddles  of  the  same  kind  (Wolfs 
Zeitschrift,  vol.  iii,  p.  5),  but  they  all  want  the  true  character 
of  a  riddle.  They  are  metaphrastic  descriptions  of  real  facts, 
and  could  never  have  been  guessed  without  a  knowledge  of 
these  facts. 

G  2 


84  ORIGIN    OF    RIDDLES.  [chap. 

Again  Riickert  says  quite  unconsciously,  '  Hoch 
iiber'm  Wald  des  Abends  Goldnetz  hangt,'  '  High 
over  the  forest  hangs  the  golden  net  of  the  evening,' 
but  the  Russians  have  made  a  riddle  of  it,  and  ask, 
'  What  is  the  gold  spun  from  one  window  to  the 
other  ? ' 

One  of  the  most  modern  among  modern  poets, 
H.  Heine,  never  tires  of  singing  of  the  commonest 
events  in  nature,  just  like  a  Vedic  ifo'shi,  and  yet  no 
one  wonders  that  he  should  have  chosen  what  are 
called  such  hackneyed,  such  trite  and  uninteresting 
subjects. 

Sonnenaufgang.     Goklne  Pfeile 

Schiessen  nach  den  weissen  Nebeln, 

Die  sich  roten,  wie  verwandelt, 

Und  in  Glanz  und  Licht  zerrinnen. 

Endlich  ist  der  Sieg  erfochten, 

Und  der  Tag,  der  Triumphator, 

Tritt,  in  stralend  voller  Glorie, 

Auf  den  Nacken  des  Gebirges. 

Another  Russian  riddle  asks,  '  What  is  the  tree  in 
the  midst  of  the  village  and  seen  in  every  cottage  ? ' 
The  answer  is,  the  sun  and  its  light,  showing  how 
familiar  the  idea  was  that  the  sun  grew  every  day 
on  an  unseen  tree  which  was  the  very  oak  on  which 
the  Sun-daughter  hung  her  red  cloak,  and  which 
was  cut  down  every  evening.  A  Norwegian  riddle 
asks  the  same  question  : — 

There  stands  a  tree  on  the  Billing-hill, 

Showering  over  the  sea, 

Its  branches  shine  like  gold, 

You  won't  guess  it  to-day. 

Now  we  must  remember  that  in  a  riddle  it  is 
necessary   to  hide   something,   and   not  to  use   the 


n]  ORIGIN    OF    RIDDLES.  85 

ordinary  names  of  sun,  moon,  stars,  wind  and  sky,  if 
the  question  refers  to  them. 

The  Enigmatic  Language  of  Mythology. 

And  this  seems  to  me  to  answer  to  a  certain 
extent  a  question  which  has  often  been  asked,  why 
the  mythological  names,  intended  clearly  for  natural 
phenomena,  should  be  so  irregular,  so  difficult  to 
explain,  and  evidently  so  little  understood  by  the 
people  themselves.  If  a  myth  passed  through  the 
enigmatic  stage,  as  just  described,  it  would  of 
necessity  retain  such  names  as  Artemis,  instead  of 
Selene,  Vulcanus  instead  of  Ignis,  Aphrodite  instead 
of  Charis,  &c,  and  if  a  riddle  has  once  become 
popular,  people  would  retain  its  phraseology  for 
ordinary  purposes  also,  just  as  schoolboys  prefer 
slang,  as  soon  as  they  have  picked  it  up.  Thus  if 
the  Lituanians  tell  us  of  a  princess  who  wears  the 
sun  as  her  crown,  the  starry  sky  as  her  cloak,  the 
moon  as  her  brooch,  whose  smile  is  the  dawn,  and 
her  tears  the  rain  which,  when  it  falls  on  the  earth, 
is  changed  into  diamonds,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that 
she  must  be  meant  for  a  kind  of  Here  (*Svara),  the 
bright  sky.  But  when  the  Lituanians,  instead  of 
saying,  '  it  rains,'  say  '  the  princess  Karalune  weeps,' 
we  cannot  tell  what  Karalune  means,  unless  we  can 
discover  the  etymology  of  the  name. 

To  us  all  these  expressions  are  interesting,  as 
pregnant  with  mythology,  and  we  learn  here  also 
why  it  is  that  the  names  which  are  least  intel- 
ligible in  themselves  excite  the  greatest  curiosity 
and  gather  the  largest  amount  of  mythology  around 
them. 

I  add  a  few  more  riddles  which,  as  soon  as  they 


86  ENIGMATIC    LANGUAGE    OF    MYTHOLOGY.       [chap. 

are  guessed,  nay  even  before,  could  not  but  lead  to 
what  we  call  popular  myths  or  legends. 
Gestiblindr  asks l  : — 

Who  is  the  Dark  one 

That  goes  over  the  earth, 

Swallows  water  and  wood, 

But  is  afraid  of  the  wind, 

Not  of  men, 

And  challenges  the  sun  to  fight  ? 

King  Heidreck, 

Mind  this  riddle. 

Heidreck  answers  : — 
Thy  riddle  is  easy, 
Blind  Gest, 
To  read. 

Mist  (myrkvi=murk)  rises 
From  Gymir's  dwelling  (the  sea), 
Hinders  the  sight  of  heaven, 
And  hides  the  rays 
Of  the  dwarf-cheater  (the  sun), 
And  flies  only  before  Fornjot's  son  (the  wind). 

If  lightning  is  called  the  blue  one  that  runs  before 
the  thunder,  we  see  again  how  easily  a  myth  might 
spring  from  such  a  saying,  particularly  as  it  is  not 
quite  clear  why  the  lightning  should  have  been 
called  blue.  Still  that  it  was  so.  we  see  even  from 
the  modern  German  expression,  blitz  blau2. 

It  has  sometimes  been  doubted  whether  a  cloud 
could  be  called  simply  the  cow.  It  is  so  in  the 
Veda,  and  that  it  was  so  in  Germany  also,  we  can 
learn  from  the  riddle  : — '  A  black-marked  cow  went 
over  a  pillarless  bridge,  and  no  man  in  the  land 
could  stop  the  cow3.' 

1  See  Mannhardt,  German.  My  then.,  p.  219. 

2  Mannhardt.  1.  c,  p.  2.  3  Mannhardt,  1.  c,  p.  7. 


Il]  ENIGMATIC    LANGUAGE    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  87 

That  the  sun  should  be  spoken  of  simply  as  the 
bird  (patanga)  or  the  swan  (hansa)  has  seemed  very 
unlikely,  particularly  when  it  was  used  to  explain 
the  change  of  Zeus  into  a  swan.  Yet  in  Kig-veda 
I,  164,  46,  it  is  evidently  the  sun  that  is  called 
divydA  supamd/i  gariitman,  the  heavenly  bird 
Garutmat,  and  in  X,  149,  3,  this  same  Garutmat 
is  called  the  bird  of  Savitri,  the  sun.  If,  as  we  can 
hardly  doubt,  the  later  Garuc/a  is  the  same  word, 
we  find  in  him  the  bird  on  which  Vishnu  is  sup- 
posed to  ride  ;  at  his  birth  he  was  supposed  to  be 
Agni  and  was  praised  as  the  sun  x.  Nor  does  it  seem 
to  require  much  imagination  to  speak  of  the  sun  as 
a  bird.  Anything  that  flies  through  the  air  might 
in  the  language  of  the  ancients  be  spoken  of  as 
a  bird.  Thus  even  the  snow  is  spoken  of  as  a  bird 
in  a  well-known  riddle  which  I  remember  hearing 
when  at  school  in  Dessau  : — 

Da  kam  ein  Vogel  federlos, 
Sass  auf  dem  Baume  bliitterlos  ; 
Da  kam  die  Jungfer  mundelos, 
Und  ass  den  Vogel  federlos, 
Hoch  auf  dem  Baume  bliitterlos. 

'There  came  a  bird  featherless, 
Sat  on  a  tree  leafless  ; 
Then  came  the  maid  mouthless, 
And  ate  the  bird  featherless, 
High  on  the  tree  leafless.' 

This  old  riddle  is  somewhat  spoiled  in  Latin : — 

Volavit  volucer  sine  plumis, 
Sedit  in  arbore  sine  foliis, 
Venit  homo  absque  manibus, 
Conscendit  ilium  sine  pedibus, 


See  Satapatha-brahmawa  IX,  4,  3-5. 


88  ENIGMATIC    LANGUAGE    OP    MYTHOLOGY.       [chap. 

Assavit  ilium  sine  igne 
Comedit  ilium  sine  ore. 

Indeed  it  seems  to  me  that  a  more  comprehensive 
study  of  old  riddles  might  throw  new  light  on 
much  that  is  enigmatical  (in  both  senses  of  the 
word)  in  ancient  mythology.  Sometimes  we  meet 
with  riddles  which  are  pure  mythology,  as  when 
we  read  in  a  collection  of  Moravian  riddles  : — 

Tata  vysokej 
Mama  siroka, 
Dcera  slepa, 
Syn  divokej  .  .  . 

Father  is  high,  Mother  is  broad  13  Daughter  is 
blind,  Son  is  wild ;  that  is,  Heaven,  Earth,  Mist,  and 
Wind2. 

Gods  with  Intelligible  Names. 

There  are  several  gods  and  heroes  in  Greek  my- 
thology whose  names  speak  for  themselves.  That 
Helios  was  meant  for  the  sun,  and  Mene  for  the 
moon,  no  one,  not  even  the  most  confirmed  Agrio- 
logist,  would  deny.  But  what  has  been  the  result  ? 
The  myths  told  of  them  are  of  the  poorest,  thinnest 
kind;  and  if  the  names  of  all  the  Greek  gods  had 
been  equally  intelligible,  we  should  probably  have 
had  no  mythology  at  all. 

Helios  and  Selene. 
If  Helios  was    called  the  son  of  Hyperion  and 
Euryphaessa  (Horn.  hym.  V,  1 1 ),  every  Greek  would 

1  Prithvi  and  pr/thivi  (broad),  the  regular  names  for  earth 
in  Sanskrit. 

2  Wolf's  Zeitschrift,  vol.  iv,  p.  374. 


Il]  HELIOS    AND    SELENE.  89 

have  understood  that  this  meant  no  more  than  that 
the  sun  is  born  of  the  high  sky  and  the  wide- 
shining  Dawn  ;  and  if  then  Euryphaessa  is  else- 
where called  Theia,  we  should  know  at  once  that 
Theia  also  must  have  been  a  name  of  the  Dawn, 
though  the  Dawn  is  generally  represented  as  the 
mother  of  Helios,  Eos,  and  Selene,  another  instance 
of  unsettled  family  relationship.  The  sister  of 
Helios,  whether  called  Selene  or  Mene  or  even 
Artemis,  is  clearly  the  moon.  Though  a  sister  of 
Helios,  who  was  called  the  son  of  Euryphaessa, 
she  is  sometimes  called  the  sister  of  Eos,  nay  the 
daughter  of  Helios,  thus  showing  with  what  freedom 
the  sights  of  nature  could  be  translated  into  my- 
thological language.  That  Pallas  (-antis)  also  can 
take  the  place  of  the  father  of  Selene  shows  that 
this  Pallas  was  likewise  of  solar  origin,  and  if  Pallas 
was  killed  by  his  daughter,  Pallas  (-adis)  Athene,  for 
threatening  violence  to  her,  this  only  proves  once 
more  how  the  Dawn-goddess  can  take  revenge  on 
her  unnatural  parents,  whether  they  are  called 
Indra,  Pra^apati,  or  Pallas  or  Hephaistos. 

If  then  we  are  told  that  Helios  rises  from 
Okeanos  in  the  East,  that  he  ascends  the  sky, 
reaches  the  middle  of  it  at  noon,  and  then  descends 
to  dive  again  into  Okeanos  in  the  West,  where 
the  gates  of  Helios  are,  and  his  entrance  into 
darkness,  we  see  before  us  a  simple  description 
of  nature,  but  nothing  as  yet  purely  mythological 
or  legendary. 

The  Boat,  and  the  Herds  of  Helios. 

Homer,  who  relates  all  this,  does  not  seem  to 
know  of  the  golden  boat,  in  which  we  are  told  by 


90        THE    BOAT,    AND    THE    HERDS    OF    HELIOS.        [chap. 

others  that  Helios  sailed  every  night,  either  round 
Okeanos  or  beneath  the  earth  from  West  to  East. 
Still  even  this  golden  boat  is  no  more  than  a 
physical  hypothesis.  And  if  it  is  said  that  in  the 
island  of  Thrinakia  or  of  Erytheia,  Helios  possesses 
seven  herds  of  oxen,  and  as  many  of  sheep,  each 
herd  numbering  fifty  head,  never  more  and  never 
less,  the  number  of  7  x  50,  that  is,  350,  is  enough  to 
show  that  what  is  meant  here  are  the  days  of  the 
year,  each  day  having  originally  been  conceived  as  in 
the  Yeda,  as  a  red  cow  led  out  in  the  morning  from 
the  dark  stable  in  the  East,  walking  across  the  sky, 
and  descending  into  the  dark  stable  in  the  West. 

When  we  come  to  the  wives  and  children  of 
Helios,  we  can  no  longer  control  the  fancy  of  Greek 
story-tellers,  but  most  of  these  names  also  show 
that  they  were  invented  to  indicate  the  sunny  and 
brilliant  character  of  those  who  bore  them.  There 
is  hardly  an  epithet  of  Helios  that  does  not  clearly 
apply  to  the  sun,  and  even  his  statues  with  their 
attributes  can  still  be  recognised  as  the  representa- 
tions of  a  solar  hero. 

Seldne. 

It  is  the  same  with  Selene  so  much  so  that,  if  we 
once  know  the  meaning  of  her  name,  we  have  not 
to  guess  her  character  either  from  her  epithets  or 
from  the  legends  told  of  her.  Her  love  for  Endy- 
mion  can  be  nothing  but  an  allegory  of  the  rays  of 
the  moon  kissing  the  setting  sun  (evSvfia) l.  Her 
fifty  daughters  may  then  be  the  4x12  moons  or 
months  of  the  Olympiad  with  two  intercalary 
moons.     If  Erse,  dew,  also  is  called  her  daughter, 

1  Chips,  iv,  87-92. 


Il]  SELENE.  91 

this  hardly  requires  any  more  interpretation  than 
if  we  said  that  the  dew  was  the  child  of  the  moon. 
Aeschylus  calls  Selene  plainly  the  eye  of  the  night, 
and  if  she  is  represented  with  two  horns  (SiKep&><?), 
this  also  speaks  for  itself. 

Apollon  and  Artemis. 

But  while  with  such  names  as  Helios  and  Selene 
mythology  had  hardly  a  chance,  we  have  only  to 
substitute  the  names  of  Apollon  and  Artemis,  and 
we  enter  at  once  into  a  complete  wilderness  of  myths, 
many  of  them  perfectly  enigmatical,  and  probably  for 
that  very  reason  all  the  more  popular. 

That  the  Greeks  at  the  time  of  Homer  did  not 
know  the  meaning  of  the  names  of  their  gods  is 
shown  by  the  very  attempts  which  their  poets,  and 
afterwards  their  philosophers  and  grammarians, 
made  to  fathom  their  etymology.  It  has  been  said 
that  their  names  were  survivals  of  a  more  ancient 
period  of  the  Greek  language,  and  that,  being 
proper  names,  they  remained  unchanged,  while 
everything  around  them  was  growing  and  changing. 
There  is  no  doubt  some  truth  in  this,  but  it  hardly 
explains  the  whole  difficulty. 

Gods  with  many  epithets,  Hermes. 
The  gods  have  generally  ever  so  many  names  and 
epithets,  but  instead  of  using  the  more  intelligible, 
the  least  intelligible  seem  to  have  been  preferred 
and  to  have  best  survived  in  mythology.  Hermes 
might  have  been  spoken  of  as  Trophonios,  Propy- 
laios,  Eriounios,  Diaktoros,  Argeiphontes.  Every 
one  of  these  names  would  have  conveyed  some  kind 
of  meaning,  though  possibly  not  the  right  one.     But 


92  GODS    WITH    MANY    EPITHETS,    HEKMES.        [chap. 

the  name  of  Hermes  was  simply  unmeaning,  and  the 
old  principle,  '  Omne  obscurum  pro  magnifico,'  seems 
to  have  guided  throughout  those  who  fixed  the 
permanent  names  of  the  Greek  gods. 

Enigmatic  Phase  of  Mythology. 

But  to  revert  once  more  to  the  subject  of  riddles, 
the  suggestion  which  I  should  like  to  repeat  is, 
whether  the  obscurity  of  many  of  the  names  of  my- 
thological gods  and  heroes  may  not  actually  be 
due  to  the  enigmatic  stage  through  which  they  had 
to  pass,  to  the  riddles  to  which  they  had  given  rise, 
and  which  would  have  ceased  to  be  riddles  if  the 
names  had  been  clear  and  intelligible  like  those  of 
Helios  and  Selene. 

We  see  not  only  in  the  ancient  language  of  the 
Veda,  but  even  in  the  modern  language  of  popular 
poetry  as  recited,  for  instance,  by  Lettish  peasants, 
a  number  of  expressions  which  we  should  call 
poetical  or  metaphorical,  but  which  to  them  seem 
quite  direct.  When  the  Vedic  poets  speak  of  the 
ten  sisters,  we  must  understand  that  they  mean  the 
fingers,  and  translate  accordingly.  When  they  speak 
of  the  seven  sisters,  what  they  mean  are  the  rivers 
or  the  dawns.  Among  the  riddles  collected  by  Dr. 
H.  Paasonen  in  the  villages  of  the  Mordvinians, 
and  published  in  the  Journal  of  the  Societe  Finno- 
Ougrienne,  vol.  xii,  1894,  we  read  (no.  74)  of  the 
five  fingers  being  called  my  two  mothers,  my  two 
daughters,  and  my  grandmother. 

In  the  Veda  we  have  to  learn  that  cow  means 
not  only  the  cloud,  but  also  the  dawn,  or  each  day 
as  it  moves  forward  from  its  stable  in  the  East,  to 
its  resting-place  in  the  West. 


II ]  ENIGMATIC    PHASE    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  93 

Some  writers  who  do  not  know  the  Veda  will 
laugh  and  say  that  this  is  simply  impossible.  Yet 
if  they  knew  their  Homer,  they  ought  to  know  the 
350  oxen  and  sheep  of  Helios,  which  can  be  meant 
for  nothing  but  the  days  of  the  year. 

When  Thunar  (thunder)  milks  his  heavenly  cows ! 
and  derives  strength  from  their  milk,  that  is,  rain 
and  dew,  these  cows  can  only  be  the  clouds.  When 
the  Mordvinians  ask  who  are  the  355  starlings, 
they  can  only  mean  the  days  of  the  year,  while  the 
twelve  eagles  and  the  fifty-two  jackdaws  are  to 
them  the  months  and  the  weeks.  When  the  Veda 
speaks  of  the  wolf  that  swallows  the  Vartika 
(Ortygia)  and  other  brilliant  objects,  the  poet  could 
only  have  meant  by  the  wolf2  darkness  or  night  or 
winter.  But  if  this  is  called  incredible,  because  it 
would  show  the  influence  of  language  on  thought, 
what  shall  we  say  to  the  Russian  riddle  that  '  The 
grey  wolf  catches  the  stars  in  the  sky '  (Seryj  volkti 
na  nehe  zvezdy  lovitu  3). 

The  Golden  Apples. 
Possibly  the  golden  apples  (ju^Xa)  which  perplexed 
even  the  ancients  and  led  them  to  suggest  that  the 
apples  fetched  by  Herakles  from  the  garden  of  the 
Hesperides  might  have  been  meant  for  ixrjXa,  herds 
of  cattle,  may  likewise  be  explained  by  some  of  the 
enigmatic  expressions  of  other  mythologies.  In  the 
popular  songs  of  the  Lets 4  there  can  be  no  doubt 

1  Cf.  Ev.    I,   33,   10,   ni/t  #yotisha  tamasa/i    g&k   adhukshat 
(Indra). 

2  Cf.  Avkoktovos  as  a  name  of  Apollon. 
s  Krek,  1.  c,  p.  285. 

4  See  Mannhardt,  Lettische  Sonnenmythen,  1875. 


94  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  [chap. 

about  the  meaning  of  the  golden  apple.    It  is  simply 
the  daily  sun,  after  sunset.     Thus  we  read : — 

The  dear  Sun  cries  bitterly 

In  the  apple-garden. 

The  golden  apple  has  fallen 

From  the  apple-tree. 

Do  not  cry,  dear  little  Sun, 

God  ]  makes  another 

Of  gold,  of  brass, 

Or  of  the  best  silver. 

And  again  : — 

Get  up  early,  daughter  of  the  Sun, 
Wash  thy  lime-wood  table  clean, 
To-morrow  morning  the  God-sons  will  come 
To  hurl  the  golden  apple. 

Here  everything  is  perfectly  clear,  and  yet  full 
of  mythological  promise.  We  can  now  understand, 
not  only  why  here  and  in  the  Kalevala,  after  one 
apple  has  fallen  from  the  tree,  another  has  to  be 
made  by  God,  or  by  a  god,  of  gold  or  silver  or 
brass ;  we  can  also  perceive  what  was  meant  by  any 
solar  hero  recovering  the  golden  apple  or  apples  and 
carrying  them  back  from  West  to  East.  We  have 
only  to  read  the  endless  sayings  about  the  Sun  and 
the  Dawn  in  the  Lettish  songs  in  order  to  be 
reminded  at  once  of  similar  terms  in  other  mytho- 
logies. Thus  the  Lets  tell  us  that  the  Sun 
bargained  her  daughter  to  the  Morning  Star,  but 
afterwards  gave  her  to  the  Moon,  that  the  two 
God-sons  (Morning  and  Evening  Stars),  instead  of 
being  the  bridegrooms,  had  to  attend  the  wedding 
in  order  to  lead  the  nuptial  chariot  (as  the  Asvins 


1  Like  the  divine  smith  who  in  the  Kalevala  makes  a  new 
moon  and  a  new  sun. 


Il]  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  95 

also  are  represented  in  the  Veda  as  present  at  the 
marriage  of  Siirya  with  Soma,  though  not  as  the 
husbands  of  the  solar  goddess,  but  as  her  charioteers). 
Perkuna,  the  supreme  deity  with  the  Lets,  is  intro- 
duced as  having  his  wedding  in  Germany,  that  is 
in  the  West,  and  in  the  morning  leading  the  Sun 
and  her  daughter  out  of  the  chamber  in  the  East. 
There  is  often  great  confusion  between  the  different 
representatives  of  the  sun,  the  dawn,  the  day, 
and  the  morning  as  members  of  the  same  family, 
and  every  fancy  that  suits  the  poet  is  welcome  and 
accepted. 

In  Lettish  mythology  e.g.  the  Morning  appears 
not  only  as  the  son  of  the  Night,  but  likewise  as  the 
daughter  of  the  Sun  (Saules  meite),  and  as  the 
daughter  of  God  (Dewo  duktele).  The  Dawn  has 
two  brothers,  the  Morning  and  Evening  Stars,  who 
are  represented  as  her  charioteers,  but  also  as  her 
husbands.  All  this  has  to  be  brought  into  line  in 
order  to  form  a  mythological  picture.  Every  single 
case  may  be  called  incredible,  but  the  whole  mass  of 
them  must  carry  conviction.  Each  Slavonic  race 
seems  to  follow  its  own  fancy,  and  while  the 
Servians  call  the  Morning  Star  the  sister  of  the  Sun, 
the  sister  of  the  Sun  with  the  Russians  is  the 
Dawn.  The  Slovaks  sing  of  the  Zori  (Dawn  and 
Gloaming),  and  of  the  God-daughters  assisted  by 
the  Morning  Star  in  harnessing  the  white  horses  of 
the  Sun.  And  are  we  still  to  be  told  that  we  have 
no  right  to  recognise  in  these  Slavonic  Zoris  the 
Haris  or  Harits  of  the  Veda,  and  Xapis  as  well 
as  the  Xo./ht€5  of  Homer  ? 

We  are  told  also  in  the  popular  Slavonic  songs 
that  the  Sun  (always  feminine)  ploughs  the  sky, 


96  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  [chap. 

harrows  it,  or  sows  seed  in  it.  For  all  this  there 
must  have  been  some  hint  taken  from  nature,  for 
we  often  find  parallel  expressions  in  other  mytho- 
logies. What  is  peculiar,  however,  to  the  Slavonic 
myths  is  the  consistently  feminine  character  of  the 
Sun.  Hence  whatever  befits  a  young  maiden  is 
ascribed  to  the  Sun-daughter,  the  Dawn,  and  also  to 
the  Gloaming.  The  Lets  tell  us  that  in  the  evening 
she  is  seen  as  combing  her  golden  hair,  and  that  her 
comb  is  seen  at  sunset  when  falling  into  the  sea1. 
When  she  tries  to  recover  it,  a  sword  (-^pvcrdcop)  rises 
from  the  sea  and  reaches  up  to  her  neck.  In  the 
evening  she  gathers  the  golden  boughs  broken  from 
the  wonderful  oak,  in  the  morning  she  has  to  harrow 
the  heavenly  meadow,  and  is  asked  to  rise  early 
to  sweep  the  threshold,  to  clean  the  table,  and  to 
wash  the  red  cloth  that  had  been  bespattered  with 
the  drops  of  blood  of  the  oak-tree.  Sometimes  the 
Sun-daughter  is  supposed  to  die  every  night,  and 
hence  the  stars  are  called  her  orphans  or  simply 
orphans.     A  Russian  song  tells  us  that— 

The  bright  sun  is  the  housewife, 

The  bright  moon  the  lord, 

And  the  bright  stars  the  children. 

When  we  remember  the  meaning  of  the  golden 
apple  or  apples  in  the  Lettish  popular  songs,  we 
may  be  better  able  to  discover  some  meaning  in  the 
golden  apples  occurring  here  and  there  in  Greek 
mythology. 

We  know  how  in  Greek  mythology  the  wedding 

Mannhardt,  I.e.,  p.  302,  compares  the  pectines  solis  et 
lamiae  turres,  as  told  by  nutriculae,  alluded  to  by  Ter- 
tullian,  adv.  Valentinian.,  3. 


n]  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  97 

feasts  of  solar  heroes  became  often  the  occasion  of 
discord  and  battles,  and  we  know  the  mischief 
wrought  by  one  famous  apple,  the  golden  apple 
thrown  by  Eris  among  the  guests  at  the  wedding 
feast  of  Peleus  and  Thetis. 

Montenegro  Song  of  the  Golden  Apples. 

There  is  a  popular  song  from  Montenegro,  the 
poet  of  which  probably  never  heard  of  Thetis  and 
Peleus  and  the  apple  of  Eris.  Yet  he  tells  the 
story  of  a  beautiful  girl,  whose  legs  were  golden- 
yellow  up  to  her  knees,  and  her  arms  golden-red 
to  her  shoulders.  A  Pasha  heard  of  her  beauty, 
and  went  with  six  hundred  wedding  guests  to  gain 
her  hand.  The  girl  when  she  saw  them  approaching 
said  : — 

'  Has  the  Pasha  gone  mad 

That  he  comes  forth  and  desires  for  his  wife 

The  sister  of  the  dear  Sun, 

The  brother's  daughter  of  the  bright  Moon, 

And  the  sister  of  the  Morning  Star?' 

Then  she  takes  three  golden  apples, 

Throws  them  high  up  to  the  sky  ; 

The  six  hundred  guests  are  thinking, 

Who  might  catch  the  golden  apples. 

Then  three  lightnings  flash  out  of  heaven, 

One  strikes  the  youngest  leader, 

The  other  fells  the  Pasha, 

And  the  third  kills  the  six  hundred, 

So  that  none  was  saved  to  tell  us 

How  they  all  perished  at  the  wedding. 

We  must  not  forget  that  the  girl,  though  wooed 
by  a  Pasha,  is  still  called  the  sister  of  the  Sun, 
the  niece  of  the  Moon,  and  the  playmate  of  the 
Morning  Star,  and  that  she  was  clearly  meant  for 

VOL.  I.  H 


98  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  [chap. 

the  Dawn  who,  when  wooed  by  the  demons  of  the 
night,  hurls  forward  the  apple1,  that  is  the  sun,  and 
kills  them  all. 

The  great  importance  of  these  popular  sayings, 
popular  songs,  and  popular  stories,  whether  repeated 
by  the  ancient  Aryas  of  India, -or  by  some  of  the 
Aryan  tribes,  such  as  Lets,  or  Eussians,  or  Germans 
of  the  present  day,  consists  in  their  enabling  us  to 
see  something  of  the  growth  of  mythology,  that  is, 
the  growth  of  the  popular  mind,  something  of 
what  I  call  the  fermentation  of  mythology,  so  well 
known  to  us  from  the  Veda.  Thus,  while  in 
the  Veda  we  saw  the  dawn  called  the  cow,  the  red 
cow  among  the  black,  we  find  the  Russians  asking 
the  riddle,  'How  is  it  that  the  black  cow  has  tossed 
and  killed  all  men,  and  the  white  cow  has  brought 
them  back  to  life  ? '  They  ask,  Who  is  the  black 
cow  who  has  stopped  the  gate,  and  who  is  the  grey 
bull  who  looks  through  the  window  2  ? 

The  Lets  sing  their  songs  and  ask  : — ■ 

Why  are  the  grey  horses 

Standing  at  the  gate  of  the  Sun? 

They  are  the  grey  horses  of  the  God-sons  (Atoo-Kovpot) 

Who  won  the  daughter  of  the  Sun  (Surya,  Electra). 

Whose  are  the  grey  horses 

At  God's  house-door? 

They  are  the  horses  of  the  Moon, 

Of  those  who  woo  the  Sun-daughter  (Dawn). 

People  say  that  the  Moon 

Has  no  horses  of  his  own, 

The  bright  apple  (rusat  pippalam)  mentioned  in  Ev.  V,  54, 
1 2  may  be  the  sun,  or  possibly  the  lightning,  S.  B.  E.  xxxii, 
P-  33i. 

Afanasieff,  Poet.  Naturanschauungen,  1,  659,  as  quoted 
by  Mannhardt. 


n]  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  99 

The  morning  star,  the  evening  star, 
They  are  the  horses  of  the  Moon. 

Here  we  see  the  mythological  elements  shooting 
together  and  crystallising  before  our  very  eyes  into 
more  or  less  definite  forms,  such  as  we  are  familiar 
with  in  most  mythologies.  We  find  exactly  the 
same  saws  in  other  countries.  The  Nyassa  people 
speak  of  the  moon  as  bald-headed,  while  the 
Greeks  speak  of  the  rays  of  the  sun  as  the  flowing 
hair  of  Apollon.  Very  soou  this  would  lead  to  a 
riddle  such  as  we  find  in  Africa,  'Who  are  the 
mother  and  the  children  in  one  house,  all  having 
bald  heads  ? '  The  Moon  and  the  Stars  \  We  thus 
see  how  easily  these  popular  saws,  sayings,  and 
songs  would  give  rise  to  riddles,  and  we  can  see  how 
essential  it  was  that  in  such  mythological  riddles 
the  principal  agents  should  not  be  called  by  their 
regular  names.  The  avoidance  of  the  ordinary 
appellatives  and  the  use  of  little-known  names  in 
most  mythologies  would  thus  find  an  intelligible 
explanation,  though  other  motives  have  no  doubt 
acted  at  the  same  time  and  with  a  similar  result. 
I  should  like  to  guard  at  once  against  being 
represented  as  considering  the  passage  through  an 
enigmatic  stage  as  an  explanation  of  the  obscurities 
of  all  mythological  names.  This  is  a  stratagem  that 
should  be  stopped  from  the  very  first.  I  only  wish 
to  point  out  the  love  of  riddles  as  one  out  of  many 
causes  which  contributed  towards  the  shaping  of 
our  Aryan  mythologies,  and  in  order  to  fortify  my 
position  or  supposition,  I  cannot  do  better  than  to 

1  Alice  Werner  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Afrikanische  und  Oceanische 
Sprachen,  vol.  ii,  p.  80. 

H  2 


IOO  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  [CHAP. 

quote  a  few  more  of  these  mythopoeic  riddles  taken 
from  totally  different  sources. 

Erzjanian  Biddies  and  Myths. 

In  the  article  already  referred  to,  by  Dr.  Paasonen, 
in  the  Journal  de  la  Societe  Finno-Ougrienne  \ 
fortunately  written  in  German  and  not  in  Finnish, 
we  find  the  following  Enigmas  on  the  Thunder  : — ■ 

(46)  Beyond  the  great  water  a  large  old  man  shouts. 

(5)  He  cannot  be  felt,  he  cannot  be  seen,  but  his  voice  is 
heard, 

(6)  He  cannot  be  seen,  he  cannot  be  felt,  but  the  mind  sees 
him.      (Distant  thunder.) 

(409)  A  cry  from  the  forest  and  light  from  the  hill,  and  the 
daughter  of  the  Volga  trembled.     (Thunder  and  lightning.) 

The  Sun. 

(165)  What  is  the  brightest  in  the  world  ? 
(235)  A   child   looks   through   the   hedge.      (Sunrise,    peep 
o'  day.) 

The  Sky. 

(261)  A  blue  field,  strewn  with  silver. 

(390)  They  are  all  sheep,  they  are  all  sheep,  there  is  one 
wether  among  them.     (Stars  and  Moon.) 

Winter  and  Snow. 

( 1  o  1 )  Who  builds  a  bridge  across  the  water  without  an  axe 
or  plane  ? 

(300)  The  sun  saw  her  and  carried  her  off;  the  moon  saw 
her  and  did  not  carry  her  off.     (The  Snow.) 

(316)  An  old  trough  and  a  new  cover. 

(416)  A  small  white  man  was  sowing,  he  became  very 
mischievous. 

(253)  A  black  coat ;  from  beneath  something  red  appears  ; 

1  Erzjanische  Zauberspriiche,  Opfergebete,  Rathsel,  Sprich- 
worter  und  Miirchen. 


Il]  THE    GOLDEN    APPLES.  IOI 

it  remains  red  nine  days,  after  nine  days  it  becomes  green. 
(Winter-seed,  sprouting. ) 

The  Wind. 
(278)  He  moves  about,  but  leaves  no  trace. 

Fire. 
(121)  A  red  cock  springs  from  house  to  house. 
(300)  Living  it  is  white,  when  beginning  to  die  it  is  red, 
when  the  breath  is  gone  it  is  black.     (Fire-wood.) 

Besides  these  riddles  we  find  also  a  number  of 
metaphorical  expressions  which  are  used  as  if  they 
required  no  commentary.  A  comb  is  called  a  wolf, 
a  flail  a  goose  with  beaks  of  oak,  the  cat  the  old 
woman  on  the  stove,  the  moon  the  dark  grey  horse, 
the  birch-tree  the  beautiful  girl,  wearing  the  same 
white  skirt  winter  and  summer. 

It  is  clear  how,  out  of  the  abundance  of  such 
expressions  mythological  conceits  must  inevitably 
have  sprung  up. 

Mordvinian  Riddles  and  Greek  Mythology. 

While  the  Mordvinians  ask  the  question  '  What 
is  the  fattest  of  all  things  ? '  (the  Earth),  the  Greeks 
answer  not  only  by  calling  the  soil  (II.  xviii,  541) 
irUipav  apovpav,  but  also  by  Pieria,  the  name  of 
the  haunt  of  the  Muses  in  Thessaly,  hence  called 
Pierides.  If  thunder  is  once  called  the  old  man 
beyond  the  great  water,  if  he  is  believed  to  shout 
from  the  forest  and  to  glare  from  the  hill,  we  are 
not  very  far  from  the  god  Donar,  the  long-bearded 
father  or  grandfather  who  lives  in  the  thunder- 
mountain  (Donnersberg  or  Thorsberg),  and  sends 
the  lightning  down  to  the  earth  (donerstrale). 

If  the  clouded  sky  is  called  a  blue  field  strewn 
with  silver,  and  the  wind  a  wanderer  who  leaves  no 


102  MORDVINIAN    AND    GREEK    MYTHOLOGY.        [chap. 

trace  behind,  if  the  sun  is  said  to  carry  off  the  snow, 
while  the  moon  leaves  her  alone  (the  snow,  fern.),  if 
the  stars  are  called  the  sheep  and  the  moon  the 
wether,  have  we  not  here  ever  so  many  elements 
which,  in  the  mind  of  a  poet  or  of  a  grandmother, 
would  soon  coalesce  and  form  any  number  of  mytho- 
logical idylls,  to  the  delight  of  listeners,  whether 
young  or  old. 

Among  many  other  interesting  riddles  we  find 
among  the  Mordvinians  the  famous  riddle  of  the 
Sphinx  in  the  tragedy  of  Oedipus  : — 

(254)  In  the  morning  it  walks  on  four,  at  noon  on  two, 
towards  evening  on  three  legs. 

I  doubt  whether  we  have  any  right  to  say  that 
it  was  borrowed  from  Greece  ;  at  all  events  we  find 
no  other  traces  of  Greek  thought  among  these  Finno- 
Ugrian  peasants,  and  we  must  try  again  and  again 
to  learn  the  old  lesson  that  what  has  happened  in 
one  place  may  have  happened  in  another,  and  that 
what  has  been  thought  and  uttered  in  the  south 
may  have  been  thought  and  uttered  in  the  north. 
On  the  other  hand  it  must  be  remembered  that 
wherever  Christianity  has  found  an  entrance,  whether 
through  missionaries,  monasteries,  or  a  regularly 
established  church,  there  was  an  opening  by  means 
of  schools  and  books  and  sermons  through  which 
classical  ideas  might  permeate  the  folklore  of  the 
most  remote  and  as  yet  uncivilised  people.  This 
warning  has  been  addressed  to  folklorists  by  James 
Darmesteter  l,  and  his  warning  has  been  supported 
by  some  very  curious  illustrations. 

1  Etudes  Iraniennes,  vol.  ii,  p.  242. 


Il]  MYTHOLOGY,    NO    SYSTEM.  I03 

Mythology,  no  System. 

In  trying  to  unravel  the  enormous  mass  of  myth- 
ology handed  down  by  tradition  from  age  to  age, 
much  mischief  has  been  done  by  looking  upon  it  as 
a  system,  as  something  orderly  and  well-arranged, 
as  something  carried  out  according  to  a  preconceived 
plan,  and  not  as  a  concourse  of  atoms,  as  a  mass  of 
momentary  thoughts  well  shaken  together  before 
they  crystallised  into  some  harmonious  shape. 

Mythographi. 

Beginning  with  the  Greek  Mythographi,  such  as 
Palaiphatos,  Herakleides,  or  rather  Herakleitos  (325 
B.C.),  and  Apollodoros  x  (140  B.C.),  most  students  of 
mythology  seem  to  have  regarded  mythology  as 
a  finished  system.  They  derived  their  information 
chiefly  from  ancient  poems,  particularly  those  of 
Homer  and  Hesiod,  and  made  them  the  ground- 
work of  their  systems  of  interpretation,  whether 
physical,  ethical,  or  historical,  while  the  thought 
that  Homer  and  Hesiod  were  only  the  last  repre- 
sentatives of  a  vast  accumulation  of  popular  tradition 
never  entered  their  minds.  If  they  paid  any  atten- 
tion at  all  to  local  traditions,  temple  stories,  or  to 
the  accounts  of  individual  poets,  they  mostly  treated 
them  as  deviations  from  recognised  mythological 
standards,  never  as  of  equal  authority  with  Homer 
and  Hesiod  2.  Hence  arose  the  idea,  first  started  by 
Herodotus,  that  Homer  and  Hesiod  had  made  the 

1  His  work  Uep\  few,  which  treated  on  the  character  of  the 
gods  with  the  help  of  etymology,  is  lost. 

2  See  on   this   subject,    Nachklange   prahistorischen   Volks- 
glaubens  in  Homer,  by  Dr.  W.  Schwartz,  1894. 


104  MYTHOGRAPHI.  [chap. 

mythology  of  the  Greeks,  an  idea  which  contains 
some  truth,  if  we  take  made  in  the  sense  of  fixed, 
but  which,  as  expressed  by  Herodotus,  has  done 
much  mischief  and  rendered  it  almost  impossible  to 
recognise  the  true  nature  of  mythology  as  a  natural 
product  of  popular  thought,  as  an  inevitable  out- 
come of  popular  conversation.  It  is  only  in  very 
recent  times  that  this  theory  of  Herodotus  has  been 
replaced  by  a  truer  one,  and  that  popular  traditions 
or  folklore  have  received  their  rightful  place  by  the 
side  of  the  classical  fables  of  Homer  and  Hesiod. 

The  Brothers  Grimm,  Schwartz,  Castren. 

This  was  chiefly  due  to  the  researches  originated 
by  the  brothers  Grimm.  They  had  themselves  to 
create  a  Teutonic  mythology,  and  as  there  was  no 
Homer  and  no  Hesiod,  no  recognised  supreme 
authority  to  follow,  they  felt  at  liberty  to  co-ordinate 
freely  every  tradition  they  could  recover  from  among 
the  people,  bearing  either  on  the  great  gods,  such 
as  Wuotan,  Donar,  and  Zio,  or  on  heroes,  such  as 
Irmino,  Orentil,  Eigil  or  Wielant.  It  is  true  that 
even  Grimm  has  created  a  kind  of  aristocratic 
Teutonic  mythology,  and  that  he  has  often  treated 
the  current  fables  and  superstitions  of  the  common 
people  in  Germany  as  mere  corruptions  of  that 
higher  mythology.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  the 
charge  brought  against  him  by  Schwartz  and  others 
is  quite  just.  The  brothers  Grimm  were  the  most 
conscientious  collectors  of  popular  stories  and  cus- 
toms, unrivalled  by  any  of  their  successors  in  their 
accuracy  and  honesty,  and  if  they  saw  in  some  of  the 
popular  traditions  mere  secondary  variations  of  the 
great  divine  myths,  they  also  discovered  in  many 


Il]  BROTHERS    GRIMM,    SCHWARTZ,    CASTREN.         T05 

local  traditions  remnants  of  the  most  ancient  stock 
of  mythological  folklore.  On  the  other  hand,  after 
Grimm  had  opened  our  eyes,  no  one  could  fail  to 
recognise  in  several  of  the  local  heroes  reflections  of 
the  ancient  gods,  and  in  their  acts  repetitions  of  the 
acts  recorded  of  the  gods.  The  only  question  is 
how  such  similarities  are  to  be  explained.  Castren, 
who  takes  the  same  view  as  Grimm,  says  1  :  '  Nothing 
is  more  common  in  heathen  religions  than  gods 
being  changed  and  turned  into  human  beings.  It 
belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  polytheism  that  the 
gods  assume  step  by  step  a  human  form.  For  as 
soon  as  a  religion  recognises  many  gods,  the  activity 
of  the  one  must  be  limited  and  determined  by  that 
of  the  others,  so  that  every  single  god  becomes 
a  finite  being.'  In  this  sense  a  famous  scholar  has 
said  :  '  The  more  the  differences  between  the  single 
gods  stand  forth,  the  more  they  become  defined  and 
finite,  the  more  they  become  human,  till  at  last  they 
stand  altogether  outside  the  sphere  of  the  divine,  as 
mere  men,  and  therefore  no  longer  objects  of  belief, 
but,  at  the  best,  historical  persons.' 

Had  Gods  and  Heroes  a  Common  Origin? 

I  am,  however,  inclined  to  agree  with  Schwartz 
so  far  that  I  do  not  think  that  all  heroes  or  demi- 
gods should  be  explained  as  being  by  necessity  mere 
corruptions  of  the  great  deities.  Some  of  them  may 
well  be  accepted  as  parallel  formations  from  the  very 
beginning.  It  is  clear  that  when  the  agents  behind 
the  various  phenomena  of  nature  had  been  raised 
to  the  dignity  of  Devas  (bright  beings)  or  AmWtas 

1  Finnische  Mythologie,  p.  307. 


Io6     HAD  GODS  AND  HEEOES  A  COMMON  ORIGIN?     [chap. 

(immortals),  some  acts  would  cling  to  them  which 
were  not  quite  in  keeping  with  the  character  of 
superhuman  beings,  nay  which  would  be  derogatory 
to  beings  raised  to  so  high  a  position  as  Zeus  /xeytcrro? 

apLCTTOS. 

Naturalia  non  sunt  turpia. 
'  Naturalia  non  sunt  turpia '  may  be  true  from  a 
philosophical  point  of  view,  but  with  beings  that 
were  to  be  raised  beyond  the  highest  standard  of 
humanity  to  the  rank  of  immortal  gods,  certain 
naturalia  must,  in  the  eyes  of  many  of  their 
worshippers,  have  seemed  decidedly  turpia.  It  is 
extraordinary  how  long  the  Greek  mind  submitted 
to  this  almost  inevitable  degradation  of  their  gods, 
particularly  of  the  Father  of  gods  and  men,  Zeus  or 
Jupiter.  Thefts,  adulteries,  and  lies  were  ascribed 
to  him  \  and  far  from  being  higher  than  his  mortal 
worshippers,  he  was  represented  in  many  of  his  acts 
as  decidedly  lower  than  the  lowest  of  men.  If  we 
once  know  the  origin  of  the  Devas,  we  can  under- 
stand that  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  avoid  this 
mischance.  For  instance,  Zeus,  as  the  god  of  the 
sky,  might  seem  married  to  the  Earth  (DemetSr)  as 
his  legitimate  wife,  but  the  air  (Here)  also  might 
claim  him  as  her  lord ;  and  in  many  places  where  he 
was  worshipped  he  was  naturally  called  the  father 
of  the  country,  the  lover  of  its  principal  river,  the 
ancestor  of  its  royal  race.  This  led  inevitably  to 
complications  which,  if  expressed  in  ordinary  lan- 
guage, became  most  compromising  to  the  character 

Cf.    Sext.   Emp.   adv.    Math,    i,     289,    KXenrap,    fxoix^eiv   re    Ka\ 
aWrjXuvs  anareveiv. 


Il]  NATURALIA    NON    SUNT    TURPIA.  107 

of  Zeus  as  a  husband.  We  find  similar  complica- 
tions even  in  the  Veda.  The  sky  is  there  also  called 
the  father  of  the  Dawn,  but  the  same  sky  may  be 
conceived  likewise  as  the  lover  of  the  Dawn,  for 
when  does  the  sky  shine  brighter  than  when  em- 
braced by  the  Dawn  ?  And  hence  the  immediate 
charge  of  incest  brought  against  the  supreme  deity 
of  the  Vedic  religion,  when  the  Dawn,  his  radiant 
daughter,  was  spoken  of  by  other  poets  as  his 
beautiful  wife.  The  same  difficulty  occurs  again 
and  again  in  other  mythologies,  for  instance  in  that 
of  the  Fins,  as  described  by  Castren. 

One  can  hardly  understand  how  such  beings  can 
have  been  tolerated,  unless  we  admit  a  faint  recol- 
lection of  their  original  meaning,  at  all  events  among 
the  more  cultivated  classes,  whether  in  Greece,  in 
India,  or  in  Finland. 

Heroes  parallel  with  Gods. 
But  the  question  of  the  relation  of  heroes  or 
demigods  to  the  gods,  which  was  so  fully  discussed 
by  Grimm,  Schwartz,  and  others,  admits  of  another 
solution  also.  There  must  have  been  cases  where, 
from  the  very  beginning,  the  exploits  of  these  deities, 
more  particularly  of  solar  deities,  were  related  in  so 
homely  and  so  realistic  a  fashion  that,  from  the  very 
first,  the  chief  agents  in  them  could  never  have  been 
taken  for  immortals,  but  must  have  assumed  at  once 
the  character  of  less  divine  and  almost  human 
beings,  or  at  all  events  of  beings  but  little  above  the 
measure  of  ordinary  mortals.  These  so-called  demi- 
gods or  heroes,  such  as  Herakles,  often  share  certain 
epithets  in  common  with  their  relatives  among  the 
gods.     They  are  often  called  the  children  of  divine 


Io8  HEROES    PARALLEL    WITH    GODS.  [chap. 

fathers  and  of  human  mothers.  They  even  receive 
a  recognised  worship,  and  are  sometimes  allowed  in 
the  end  to  join  the  company  of  the  gods.  This 
shows  once  more  why  we  need  not  with  Grimm 
take  all  heroes  of  popular  tales  as  corruptions  of 
the  gods  whose  character  they  share,  but  may 
accept  some  of  them  at  least,  as  sprung  from  the 
same  source  with  the  gods,  only  turned  from  the 
first  into  a  different  channel. 

Helena  both  Goddess  and  Heroine. 

It  is  well  known,  for  instance,  that  Helena  was 
a  goddess,  and  had  her  own  temples  and  worship  in 
Greece.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  this  goddess 
became  afterwards  Helen,  whether  carried  off  by 
Theseus  to  Aphidnae,  or  by  Paris  to  Troy. 

Such  a  process  would  be  difficult  to  understand, 
while  it  becomes  intelligible  as  soon  as  we  admit  a 
cluster  of  legends  springing  up  about  the  name  of 
Helena,  some  of  them  combining  to  form  the  image 
of  a  goddess,  others  the  image  of  a  heroine.  It  does 
not  signify  at  this  point  of  our  inquiry  whether  we 
assign  to  the  name  of  Helena  the  original  meaning 
of  Dawn  (Sarama)  or  of  Moon  (Selene).  It  suffices, 
if  we  want  to  account  for  the  co-existence  of  a 
goddess  and  of  a  heroine  Helena,  that  we  should 
remember  how  her  extremely  human  characteristics 
could  have  been  gathered  up  in  the  beautiful  heroine 
only,  while  her  superhuman  qualities  fitted  her  for 
divine  honours  such  as  she  certainly  received  in 
ancient  Greece  1.  In  this  way  the  objections  raised 
by  Schwartz  against   Grimm's  system   may  be  re- 

1  Th.  Heicks,  De  Helena  Dea,  Sigmaringen,  1863. 


Il]  HELENA    BOTH    GODDESS    AND    HEEOINE.  109 

moved,  and  yet  the  process  of  the  simultaneous 
origin  of  gods  and  heroes  from  similar  antecedents 
be  fully  accounted  for. 

Dr.  Halm  on  Marchen. 
This  question  has  been  very  fully  discussed  by 
Hahn  in  his  important  work,  Sagwissenschaftliche 
Studien.     On  page  51   he  writes:    'We  are  forced 
to  admit  that  the  traditions  produced  by  the  most 
ancient  races  are  not  worked  up  in  their  complete- 
ness in  what  we  possess  of  their  mythology  of  gods 
and   heroes.     A   considerable  portion  of  these  pri- 
mordial thoughts  has  been  preserved  to  the  present 
day,  nay,  in  spite  of  its  enormous  age  we  see  it 
growing  with   undiminished  vigour  in  the  popular 
mind,    and   powerfully   reacting   upon   it.     This   is 
proved    by    the    existence    of    the    Marchen,    and 
the   palpable   relationship    of  the   Miirchen  among 
people  of  the  same  origin.'     After  pointing  out  the 
difficulties  which    stand  in  the  way   of  admitting 
a  mere  borrowing   of  Marchen   by  one   race   from 
another,  Dr.  Hahn  shows  that  a  careful  analysis  of 
these   popular   stories    discloses,    as   their    original 
contents,  the  same  natural  phenomena  which  sup- 
plied the  material  of  the  mythical   stories  of  gods 
and  heroes,  clothed  in  a  more  homely  form.     The 
origin    of   these    Marchen,    which    we    find   to    the 
present  day  in  the  different  branches  of  the  Aryan 
family  of  speech,  is  referred  by  him  to  a  period  pre- 
ceding the  Aryan  separation.      In  all  this  he  may 
be  perfectly  right,  but  he  is  wrong  when  he  declines 
to  take  into  account  the  historical  and  much  later 
migration  of  fables  from   India   to   Europe,   which 
Benfey  has   proved  by   evidence  which   cannot  be 


IIO  DR.     HAHN    ON    MAECHEN.  [chap. 

questioned.  If  we  remove  all  that  has  been  shown 
to  have  been  imported  in  historical  times  from  India 
to  Europe  from  station  to  station,  from  Sanskrit  to 
Pahlavi,  to  Arabic,  Greek,  Hebrew,  Latin,  &c,  there 
remains  still  plenty  of  popular  tradition  that  has 
to  be  accounted  for  in  other  ways.  Benfey's  facts, 
it  seems  to  me,  are  unassailable,  and  the  results 
established  by  Hahn  are  not  in  any  conflict  with 
Benfey's  system.  The  process  is  exactly  the  same 
as  when,  by  the  side  of  a  large  number  of  common 
Aryan  words,  we  find  in  English  a  class  of  foreign 
names  exported  in  historical  times  from  India  or 
Persia  to  the  British  Isles,  or  from  Greek  or  Latin 
to  Gothic.  The  two  facts  are  perfectly  compatible, 
nay,  it  happens  but  seldom  that  we  are  left  in  doubt 
whether  any  of  these  fables  form  part  of  the  common 
Aryan  heirloom  or  are  imports  of  a  later  time. 

Beginnings  of  Mythology  Lost. 

We  should  never  forget  how  limited  our  know- 
ledge of  ancient  popular  tradition  really  is,  even  in 
the  case  of  Hindus  and  Greeks,  and  how  the  earliest 
chapters  of  mythology  are  lost  to  us  for  ever.  To 
the  Greeks  the  Homeric  poems  were  the  most  distant 
background  of  their  mythology  and  religion,  nay, 
of  their  history  also  ;  to  us  they  are  a  beautifully 
painted  curtain  which  must  be  lifted  before  we 
can  hope  to  see  the  earliest  acts  of  the  drama  of 
mythology,  or  to  recognise  the  original  actors  and 
the  natural  scenery  by  which  they  were  surrounded. 

How  true  are  the  words  of  Kekule  in  his  Ent- 
stehung  der  Gotterideale,  1877,  when  he  describes 
Greek  mythology  as  a  mere  fragment  taken  from 


Il]  BEGINNINGS    OF    MYTHOLOGY    LOST.  Ill 

the  worlds  of  metaphor  and  dreams  piled  one  upon 
the  other  by  the  hand  of  man,  or  as  one  page  torn 
from  the  great  picture-book  of  nature,  for  which 
nothing  is  too  small,  nothing  too  sublime. 

'  Then,'  he  continues,  '  as  soon  as  one  of  these 
pictures  ceases  to  be  intelligible  to  later  generations, 
and  becomes  a  mere  name,  a  new  metaphor,  a  new 
form,  a  new  poem  rises  from  the  well  of  language 
and  poetry  to  represent  the  same  natural  pheno- 
menon in  its  coming  and  going,  till  that  living 
fountain  is  wellnigh  dried  up,  though  it  never  dries 
up  altogether,  always  sending  up  new  figures,  only 
less  powerful  than  before,  till  of  the  unforgotten, 
mighty,  primeval  notes  and  metaphors  of  nature's 
own  poetry  nothing  remains  but  the  names  and 
persons  of  gods  and  heroes,  with  their  stories  which 
send  forth  fresh  shoots  without  ceasing.' 

Schelling. 

It  was  Schelling,  I  believe,  who  was  the  first  to 
complain  of  the  '  shallowness  of  any  admiration  for 
Homer  which  is  not  founded  on  a  perception  of  the 
remote  past,  left  behind  (iiberwunden)  by  his 
creations.'  It  was  only  after  Schelling's  death  that 
by  means  of  Comparative  Philology  and  Comparative 
Mythology  it  became  possible  to  lift,  to  a  certain 
extent,  the  curtain  which,  as  he  well  saw,  divided 
the  Homeric  present  from  the  Homeric  past.  With 
every  year  we  have  learnt  more  and  more  how  very 
modern  the  Homeric  poems  really  are,  I  mean,  how 
much  they  presuppose,  and  how  much  of  the  rich 
growth  of  religious  and  mythological  folklore  they 
leave  unnoticed.  If  the  Iliad  gives  us  a  small 
fragment  only  of  the  Siege  of  Troy,  both  Iliad  and 
Odyssey    give    us    a    still    smaller    fragment    only 


112 


SCHELLING.  [chap. 

of  the  vast  treasure  of  the  widely  scattered  myths, 
traditions,  legends,  and  superstitions  of  the  Greek 
people  in  its  numerous  branches. 

And  what  applies  to  Greek  applies  to  all  mytho- 
logies, even  to  that  of  the  Veda,  though  here,  better 
than  anywhere  else,  we  are  sometimes  allowed  to 
watch  the  very  process  of  fermentation  which  always 
precedes  the  birth  of  real  mythology. 

The  Original  Elements  of  Mythology. 

From  all  that  has  been  learnt,  partly  from  a  study 
of  the  Veda,  partly  also  from  a  scholarlike  analysis 
of  remnants  of  ancient  mythology  among  other  races, 
the  conclusions  reached,  and  now  most  generally 
adopted  with  regard  to  the  origin  of  mythology  in 
general,  may  be  summed  up  as  follows. 

The  process  by  which  what  are  called  the  gods, 
whether  Devas,  or  ©eot,  or  Dii,  or  tivar,  were 
originally  called  into  being,  was  perfectly  natural, 
nay,  it  was  inevitable.  We  ourselves,  living  on  the 
vast  accumulated  wealth  of  language,  i.  e.  thought, 
are  enabled  to  speak  of  natural  forces  which  produce 
a  thunderstorm,  with  its  lightnings  and  showers  ; 
but  what  could  the  ancients  have  said  ?  They  had 
no  word,  no  thought,  for  forces  in  our  sense  of  the 
word.  And  perhaps  it  was  fortunate  that  they  had 
not,  for  what  do  we  ourselves  mean  by  forces  in 
their  substantial  character?  They  are,  to  repeat 
once  more  the  words  of  R.  von  Mayer,  no  better 
than  the  gods  of  Greece.  If  the  ancient  Greeks  or 
the  Aryas  of  India  began  to  ask,  whence  came  rain 
and  lightning,  whence  sprang  hail  and  snow,  heat 
and  cold,  day  and  night,  coming  and  going  in 
regular    or    irregular    succession,    they   could    only 


Il]  OEIGINAL    ELEMENTS    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  113 

speak  of  agents  and  workers,  as  they  spoke  of 
agents  and  workers  who  had  ploughed  the  land, 
forged  the  iron,  or  built  a  hut.  And  this  arose  not 
only  from  a  necessity  of  thought,  but  at  the  same 
time  from  a  necessity  of  language.  If  they  wished 
to  form  the  first  names  for  the  wind,  or  the  fire,  or 
the  sun  by  names  such  as  alone  their  language  could 
produce,  they  had  to  make  use  of  the  same  radical 
elements  from  which  all  their  words  had  been 
derived,  i.e.  the  so-called  roots,  their  earliest  pre- 
dicates, their  earliest  abstractions,  their  earliest 
general  terms.  Without  general  terms  there  can 
be  no  names,  except  imitations  like  cuckoo  or 
bow-wow.  As  they  called  a  potter  a  kneader  or 
shaper,  from  a  root  dih,  to  knead,  to  shape,  and 
a  butcher  a  clissecter,  samitri,  from  sam,  used  in 
the  sense  of  preparing  or  making  ready,  they  called 
the  wind  a  blower,  Vayu,  from  va,  to  blow;  they 
called  the  sun  Savitrz,  from  su,  to  stir,  the  cloud 
Megha,  from  mih,  to  moisten,  or  Par^anya,  from 
a  root  meaning  to  sprinkle,  preserved  in  a-spergo1. 
By  creating  these  names  they  created  their  Devas, 
whose  Devahood,  that  is  whose  brightness,  and 
afterwards  divinity,  was  but  the  general  complement 
of  their  physical  activity. 

If  the  first  idea  of  an  object  arose,  as  Noire  has 
shown,  from  the  consciousness  of  an  opus  operatum, 
a  cave  dug  out  or  a  flint  polished,  the  idea  of  cause 
was  realised  for  the  first  time  in  the  consciousness  of 
an  act,  of  force  exercised  by  man  himself,  and  in  the 
recognition  of  the  Devas,  or  what  we  call  the  forces 
of  nature,  the  nomina  agentis  of  mythology.    Most  of 

1  See  M.  M.,  India,  &c,  p.  227  seq. 
VOL.  I.  I 


114  ORIGINAL    ELEMENTS    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

the  Aryan  roots  expressed  actions,  and  hence  the 
names  given  to  the  great  phenomena  or  activities  of 
nature  could  not  be  anything  but  what  they  are, 
nomina  agentis.  I  need  not  enter  once  more 
into  the  question  of  the  origin  of  roots,  the  origin 
of  origins,  so  to  say,  or  explain  once  more  why 
roots  were  naturally  expressive  of  actions,  as  these 
questions  have  been  fully  treated  in  my  Science  of 
Thought.  Suffice  it  to  state  that  no  attempt  at 
going  beyond  or  analysing  these  roots  either  phone- 
tically or  logically  has  hitherto  led  to  any  results 
likely  to  benefit  the  student  of  mythology,  though 
as  a  philosophical  problem  the  origin  of  roots  will 
always  continue  to  exercise  its  charm  on  human 
curiosity.  To  say  that  these  roots  are  emotional  is 
saying  no  more  than  that  all  the  impressions  of  our 
senses  are  emotional,  and  cannot  be  anything  else. 

To  us,  however,  these  roots  are  historical  monu- 
ments, more  ancient  than  any  human  monuments  on 
the  face  of  the  whole  earth.  Being  roots  they  could 
never  have  existed  by  themselves,  but  they  were  that 
without  which  no  words  could  have  existed.  To  us 
they  are  of  course  abstractions,  gathered  from  the 
various  words  in  which  they  occur.  But  in  order  to 
occur  in  those  various  words  they  had  to  be  some- 
thing real  and  independent,  just  as  the  threads, 
before  they  could  be  woven  into  any  kind  of  tissue, 
had  to  exist  in  the  hands  of  the  weavers.  When 
these  roots  had  once  been  used  for  forming  names 
of  objects  that  could  be  comprehended  under  them, 
the  Aryan  speakers  found  themselves  in  possession 
of  such  words  as  Agni,  Indra,  Ushas,  and  all  the 
rest.  Agni,  the  fire,  meant  originally  no  more  than 
the  agile,  the  swift  mover,  Vahni  meant  much  the 


Il]  ORIGINAL    ELEMENTS    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  II5 

same,  so  did  Bhura?zyu  and  other  names  of  fire. 
Indra  meant  the  moistener,  Ushas,  the  shiner. 
Besides  expressing,  however,  these  general  activities, 
these  names  had  a  more  definite  purpose  also,  and 
they  reminded  those  who  used  them  of  many  things 
besides  the  simple  acts  expressed  by  their  roots. 
Agni  to  the  minds  and  memories  of  those  who  had 
formed  that  name  was  not  only  the  quivering  and 
flashing  light,  or  the  source  of  warmth  and  light  on 
the  hearth  of  every  house,  he  was  also  the  devourer 
of  forests,  the  fatal  lightning  bursting  from  the 
clouds,  the  fiery  ball  rising  every  day  from  the  ocean 
and  vanishing  again  in  the  waters  which  had  given 
him  birth.  He  was  remembered  as  struck  out  of 
flint,  as  rubbed  from  two  sticks,  as  hiding  in  the 
wood,  as  hidden  during  the  night  in  the  waters,  nay, 
judging  from  the  warmth  of  the  body,  he  was 
supposed  to  be  dwelling  even  within  us.  Indra 
again  was  not  simply  the  giver  of  rain,  important  as 
that  primary  function  of  his  was  in  hot  countries  ; 
he  was  at  the  same  time  the  wielder  of  the  thunder- 
bolt, the  warrior  fighting  against  the  black  clouds, 
the  conqueror  of  their  strongholds  and  deliverer  of 
their  prisoners.  It  was  he  who  broke  open  their 
stable,  and  rescued  the  imprisoned  cows,  i.  e.  the 
waters  of  the  clouds  or  the  brio-lit  dawns  of  the 
morning,  the  beautiful  dawn-maidens.  The  more 
terrible  the  thunderclouds  which  he  had  to  fight,  the 
more  powerful  became  the  hero  who  could  tear  them 
all  to  pieces,  and  make  them  yield  their  hidden 
treasures,  whether  water  or  licdit.  Ushas  a^ain,  the 
Dawn,  was  not  only  the  bright  light  of  the  morning, 
she  was  the  bringer  of  light  and  life,  illuminating 
the  whole  sky,  heralding  the  sun,  flying  before  him, 

1  2 


Il6  ORIGINAL    ELEMENTS    OF    MYTHOLOGY.  [CHAP. 

and  at  last  vanishing  in  the  fiery  embraces  of  her 
pursuer.  There  may  be  difference  of  opinion  on  the 
exact  etymology  of  these  divine  names  ;  there  can  be 
none  as  to  the  fact  that  they  all  had  an  etymology, 
and  that  originally  they  all  expressed  the  prominent 
actors  in  the  never-ceasing:  drama  of  nature. 

Male  and  Female  Agents. 

Here  we  can  see  the  first  inevitable  steps  from 
mere  agents  to  agents  conceived  as  male  and  female. 
Agni  and  Indra  would  naturally  remain  male  heroes, 
but  the  Dawn,  originally  ushas,  and  grammatically 
as  yet  neither  masculine  nor  feminine,  would  as 
followed  by  the  sun,  as  being  loved  by  him,  as  seen 
fleeing  before  him,  be  naturally  adorned  with  feminine 
epithets  only.  She  would  become  an  Ushas,  or 
*Ushasa,  an  Eos,  or  Aurora,  a  woman,  a  so-called 
goddess,  and  serve  as  a  type  or  example  soon  to  be 
followed  by  other  physical  agents,  such  as  the  moon, 
the  waters,  or  the  earth,  all  frequently,  though  by 
no  means  always,  conceived  as  female  characters. 

Common  Epithets  of  Physical  Agents. 

From  sharing  some  of  their  attributes  in  common, 
some  of  these  unseen  agents  behind  the  veil  of 
nature  were  soon  spoken  of  by  general  names, 
whether  as  bright,  i.  e.  deva,  or  as  living,  i.  e.  asura x, 
or  as  not  ageing,  i.  e.  a(/ara,  or  as  never  fading  and 
dying,  i.  e.  amnta,  immortal.  Sometimes  the  name 
of  one  of  them  would  be  extended  to  others,  as,  for 
instance,  in  Finnish,  where  Jumala  is  the  name  of 
the  agent  of  the  sky,  or  the  thunder,  but  is  after- 

1  Asura   is  taken  by  Oldenberg  as   meaning   possessed   of 
miraculous  power,  wundermachtig ;  why? 


Il]  COMMON    EPITHETS    OF    PHYSICAL    AGENTS.  117 

wards  extended  to  other  deities  also,  so  as  to  become 
in  the  end  a  name  for  gods  in  general.  In  Pali, 
Maru,  originally  a  name  of  the  storm-gods,  has  become 
a  name  for  gods  in  general1.  In  Mongolian,  also, 
tengri,  originally  the  name  of  the  sky  and  the  god 
of  the  sky,  comes  afterwards  to  be  used  in  the 
general  sense  of  gods  or  spirits. 

The   Vedic    Devas    were    to    Dyaus    what    the 
Mongolian  tengri  were  to  Tengri.     They  were  called 
immortal  because  they  were  always  there.     They  had 
been   known   to    fathers,    grandfathers,    and    great- 
grandfathers, and  they  would  be  known  as  the  same 
by  children,  grandchildren,  and  great-grandchildren. 
Who  then  was  immortal,  if  they  were  not  ? 
What  are  the  Devas  ? 
People  speak  so  thoughtlessly,  not  to  say  foolishly, 
about  the  gods  of  various  Aryan  mythologies  and 
their  relation  to  each   other,  that  it  really  seems 
necessary  to  remind  them  that  not  one  of  the  gods 
ever   possessed    any    substantive  existence.     There 
never  was  a  Dyaus  or  a  Mitra  and  Varmia,  there 
never  was  a  Zeus   or  a  Jupiter.       These   gods   are 
names  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,   they  are 
concepts    or    creations    of   the    human   brain,    thus 
teaching  us  a  lesson  which  is  capable  of  much  wider 
application.     It  is  true  that  the  conception  of  all  the 
ancient  Aryan  gods  was  suggested  by  what  we  call 
real  objects,  by  the  great  phenomena  of  nature,  but 
they  were  fashioned  as  divine  personalities  by  the 
mind  of  man  (namarupa).    Even  such  names  as  Agni, 
hre,  Surya  or  Helios,  sun,  Ushas  or  Eos,  dawn,  though 
representing  .the  activities   of  real,  of  palpable  or 

1  S.  B.  E.,  vol.  xxxii,  p.  xxiv. 


Il8  WHAT    ARE    THE    DEVAS  ?  [chap. 

visible  things,  were  never  meant  simply  for  the 
material  fire,  for  the  fiery  globe,  or  for  the  rosy  light 
of  the  morning,  that  appeared  and  vanished  every 
day.  As  soon  as  they  were  used  mythologically, 
they  stood  for  ideas  framed  by  men  who  not  only 
saw  and  stared,  but  who  thought  and  adored.  Agni 
was  not  confined  to  the  hearth,  but  wherever  there 
was  light  or  warmth,  whether  on  earth  or  in  heaven, 
there  was  Agni.  He  was  there  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  he  was  in  these  many  places,  not,  as  is 
generally  supposed,  as  the  result  of  a  philosophical 
syncretism,  but  in  consequence  of  his  unbroken 
manifestation  under  various  forms.  Nor  was  even 
Surya,  the  sun,  confined  to  the  sky.  As  SavitW  he 
was  supposed  to  pervade  all  living  things,  as 
Vishnu  he  stepped  across  the  air,  as  Mitra  he  was 
the  delight  of  the  whole  world.  It  seems  almost 
absurd  that  we  should  have  to  insist  on  these  plain 
facts,  but  from  the  way  in  which  some  scholars 
speak  of  gods  and  heroes  and  ancestral  spirits,  one 
would  almost  think  that  these  beings  had  some 
substantive  existence,  that  they  had  lived  in  India, 
and  had  migrated  through  the  clouds  to  Persia,  to 
Asia  Minor,  Greece,  and  Italy,  to  say  nothing  of 
Ilussia,  Germany,  and  Gaul. 

True  Meaning  of  Deva. 

We  should  always  remember  that  if  the  iiishis 
called  the  sky,  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  dawn 
deva,  it  is  we  who  have  translated  this  word 
which  meant  originally  bright,  by  god.  If  we 
could  ask  the  Vedic  Rishis  what  they  really  meant 
by  calling  a  number  of  physical  phenomena,  or  the 
agents  behind   them,  devas,  they  would  probably 


n]  TRUE    MEANING    OF    DEVA.  Iig 

find  the  same  difficulty  in  answering  such  a  question 
which  the  Greeks  felt  when  they  were  asked  why 
they  called  Zeus  and  Apollo  gods,  6eol,  nay,  which 
the  Jews  might  feel,  if  asked  why  they  called  Jeho- 
vah God,  or  the  Christians  when  asked  why  they 
gave  the  same  name  not  only  to  the  Father,  but 
also  to  the  Son  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost.  These  are 
questions  which  it  is  easy  to  ask,  but  which  it  is 
almost  useless  to  attempt  to  answer.  We  must  be 
satisfied  with  what  history  teaches  us,  with  the  fact 
that  the  Yedic  poets  called  sky,  sun  and  moon,  dawn 
and  fire,  at  first  deva,  bright,  and  that  afterwards 
they  extended  that  name,  in  a  more  abstract  sense, 
to  other  phenomena  of  nature,  such  as  the  earth, 
water,  storm,  rain,  nay  even  the  night,  though  they 
certainly  were  not  bright,  so  that  deva  in  the 
end  meant  something  indefinable  which  all  these 
agents  shared  in  common.  Whenever  the  ancients 
speak  of  or  to  these  Devas,  all  we  are  justified  in 
saying  is  that  they  conceived  them  as  bright 
agents1,  without  asking  as  yet  any  further  ques- 
tions. We  cannot  say  that  the  Devas  were  con- 
ceived from  the  first  as  men,  or  as  animals,  or  as 
spirits,  or  as  ghosts,  or  as  fetishes,  or  as  totems,  at 
least  there  is  no  tangible  evidence  in  support  of  any 
of  these  views.  These  gods  were  simply  agents, 
though  they  were  soon  spoken  of,  even  in  the  Veda,  as 
possessing  heads  and  arms  and  legs  and  eyes  and  ears. 
One  can  understand  that  it  would  be  difficult  to 
define  what  kind  of  beings  the  Greeks  thought  Zeus 
and  Apollon  and  Athene  to  have  been.  But  any- 
body who  knows  the  Veda  would  not  hesitate  for 

1  Gifford  Lectures,  vol.  ii,  p.  132. 


120  TRUE    MEANING    OF    DEVA.  [cHAP. 

one  moment  to  say  that  when  the  ifo'shis  addressed 
Dyaus,  they  meant  the  sky  in  all  its  aspects,  but 
always  as  a  subject,  as  active,  as  an  agent.  When 
they  spoke  of  Ushas,  they  thought  of  her  not  only 
as  an  agent,  but,  in  addition  to  that,  as  a  female 
agent.  When  they  invoked  the  Maruts,  they  meant 
a  whole  class  of  active  beings  manifested  in  thunder, 
lightning,  and  rain.  Here  lies  the  immense  advan- 
tage of  the  Veda. 

Mitra  and  Varuna. 
For  even  if  we  go  a  step  further  and  ask  what 
was  meant  by  names  no  longer  used  in  their  appel- 
lative character,  such  as  Mitra,  Varuna,  Rudra,  and 
all   the   rest,   we   can   gather  from  the   predicates 
applied  to  them  that  Mitra  was  originally  the  agent 
of  the  bright  morning,  Varuna  of  the  evening  sky, 
and  Rudra  of  the  thunderstorm.     Only  we  must 
not  restrict  the  sphere  of  activity  of  these  Devas 
too  narrowly,  by  translating  their  names  by  words 
which  with  us  have  been  restricted  to  a  much  more 
narrower  sphere.  Mitra  represents  not  only  the  morn- 
ing sun,  but  the  light  of  the  morning,  the  day  in  all 
its  brightness,  while  Varuna  is  meant  not  only  for 
the  covering  sky,  but  for  the  evening  or  the  night, 
nay  for  the  setting  sun ;  it  may  be  even  for  the  moon 
with  the  stars,  as  integral  parts  of  the  covering  sky1. 
When  the  sun  had  once  been  called  the  light  of 
day  or  the  eye  (£akshus)  of  Mitra  or  of  the  bright 
Devas 2,  the  moon  would  soon  be  called  the  bright- 

1  II.    viii,    555,    wj    8'   or     iv    ovpavai    liar  pa    (paavijv    dp(p\    o-ihi]vr)v. 

Ahuramazda  (an  original  Varuna)  says  of  himself  even  in  so 
late  a  work  as  the  Bundehesh,  xxx,  5,  '  When  by  me  sun  and 
moon  and  stars  are  conducted  in  the  firmament  (andarvai). ' 

2  Maitr.  Sa7wh.  IV,  2,  1,  Asau  va  adityo  devanam  fcikshus. 


n]  MITRA    AND    VARUVA.  121 

ness  of  the  night,  or  the  eye  of  Varwia  and  the 
departed  spirits  1.  All  this  is  intelligible,  if  we  do 
not  attempt  to  define  too  much,  if  we  do  not  ask 
questions  such  as  would  never  have  presented  them- 
selves to  the  minds  of  the  Vedic  Aryas. 

The  Names  of  the  Devas  in  Modern  Sanskrit,  or 
in  Zend. 

Another  great  advantage  which  the  Veda  offers  to 
students  of  mythology  is  this,  that  even  words  which 
have  become  mere  names,  such  as  Mitra  and  Varuna, 
often  disclose  their  etymological  meaning  either  in 
later  Sanskrit,  or  in  the  closely  allied  dialect  of 
ancient  Persia.  Thus  mitra,  m.,  may  still  be  used 
in  ordinary  Sanskrit  for  the  sun,  and  mitra-udaya 
is  the  commonest  word  for  sunrise.  In  Zend,  Mithra 
is  represented  as  the  lord  of  wide  pastures  with  ten 
thousand  eyes2.  Four  heavenly  steeds,  white  and 
shining,  carry  him  forward,  and  as  he  represents  the 
light  of  the  morning,  being  bright  and  clear  himself, 
he  is  supposed  to  see  and  to  know  everything,  and 
is  called  the  destroyer  of  darkness,  and  of  the  powers 
of  darkness,  such  as  Yatus,  Pairikas,  &c,  the  pro- 
tector of  truth  and  the  avenger  of  untruth.  Even 
when  in  later  times  the  worship  of  Mithra  had  been 
imported  into  Italy,  we  find  inscriptions  such  as 
'  Deo  invicto  Soli  Mithrae,'  showing  that  the  solar 
beginnings  of  the  god  were  not  quite  forgotten,  even 
in  foreign  countries.  Mitra  begins  with  the  sun 
and  ends  with  the  sun  (mihr  in  modern  Persian  is 
the  sun),  and  though  Varuna   cannot  be  analysed 

1  £ankh.  Sraut.  Sutra  III,  16,  2,  Jiandrama  vai  pitnwam 
A'akshus. 

2  See  Mihir  Yasht,  S.B.E.,  vol.  xxiii,  p.  119. 


122  NAMES    OF    THE    DEVAS.  [chap. 

with  the  same  completeness,  still  being  clearly  the 
complementary  deity  of  Mitra,  we  cannot  doubt  for 
one  moment  that  he  was  conceived  from  the  first  as 
the  dark  covering  sky,  as  the  evening,  as  the  West, 
and  therefore  as  occasionally  connected  with  sun 
and  moon  also.  It  is  idle  to  ask  such  questions  as 
how  the  sun  can  be  Mitra  and  likewise  the  eye  of 
Mitra,  and  how  the  moon  can  be  the  eye  of  the 
Fathers,  and  at  the  same  time  the  abode  of  the 
Fathers  ?  In  Vedic  literature  we  have  to  deal  with 
independent  poets,  every  one  of  whom  has  a  right 
to  think  and  to  speak  in  his  own  way,  unrestrained 
as  yet  by  any  system.  Why  then  should  not  one 
poet  call  the  sun  Mitra,  and  another  the  eye  of 
Mitra  ?  Why  should  not  Varuwa  be  the  over-arch- 
ing sky,  and  yet  be  represented  as  enthroned  in  the 
sky,  clothed  in  his  cloak  and  surrounded  by  his 
spies  ? 

Complementary  Devas. 

Lastly,  though  originally  Vanma  was  all  that 
Mitra  was  not,  and  vice  versa,  still  there  was  much 
of  the  heavenly  work,  of  the  return  of  day  and 
night,  that  might  fall  to  the  share  of  both  gods. 
Hence  they  are  frequently  invoked  as  a  dual  deity, 
as  Mitra- Varunau,  or  even  as  Mitra,  the  two  Mitras, 
or  Varuna,  the  two  Varu/ias.  The  sun  is  then  called 
the  eye  of  both,  of  Mitra  and  Varuwa  (Rig-veda 
VII,  61). 

All  this  is  perfectly  intelligible  if  we  do  not  refine 
too  much,  if  we  do  not  imagine  that  the  Veda  was 
built  up  according  to  a  systematic  plan,  if  we  do  not 
perplex  ourselves  with  questions  which  had  no 
existence  in  a  mythopoeic  age.  People  seem  bent 
on  misunderstanding  each  other.     If  Mitra  is  said 


Il]  COMPLEMENTAEY    DEVAS.  I23 

to  be  the  sun,  they  say  at  once,  surely  not  the 
visible,  the  material  sun.  If  Apollon  is  called  a  solar 
god,  they  protest  that  no  Greek  would  ever  have 
recognised  Apollon  in  the  sun  above  their  heads. 
But  who  ever  said  so  ?  When  we  say  that  Apollon 
was  the  sun,  people  ought  by  this  time  to  know 
what  is  meant  by  such  an  expression,  and  that  no 
more  can  be  meant  than  when  Louis  XIV  said, 
'  L'etat  c'est  moi.'  Even  when  people  call  Zeus 
a  solar  or  Here  a  lunar  deity,  they  do  not  mean 
what  Plutarch  said  (Quaestiones  Rom.  lxxvii),  that 
Zeus  himself  in  his  substance  was  the  sun,  and  Here 
herself  in  her  substance  was  the  moon,  but  simply 
that  the  elements  from  which  the  character  of  these 
deities  was  elaborated  were  from  the  first  taken 
from  the  sun  and  the  moon.  To  say  that  no  Greek 
would  have  recognised  Apollon  in  the  sun,  is  a  strong 
assertion,  considering  his  names  of  Phoibos,  Xanthos, 
Chrysokomes,  Lykoktonos,  Enauros,  or  in  Latin 
Matutinus  l. 

Every  deity  rests  on  something  visible,  though  it 
is  not  that  something  which  is  visible,  but  something 
invisible  within  or  behind.  It  is  in  one  sense  the 
infinite  behind  the  finite,  the  ever-varying  object  of 
all  religious  aspirations  ;  the  agent  postulated  to 
account  for  certain  acts,  the  cause  or  force  postulated 
to  account  for  certain  effects.  All  these  things  are 
known  or  ought  to  be  known  by  this  time.  What  still 
remains  for  the  comparative  philologist  to  do  is  to 
prove  the  presence  of  the  material  beginnings  of  each 
deity,  to  lay  bare  what  we  call  the  solar,  lunar,  vernal, 

1  Cf.  v.  Schroeder,  K.  Z.,  xxix,  p.  195  ;  v.  Willamowitz, 
Hermes,  xviii,  406  ;  Indogerm.  Forschungen,  iv,  173. 


124  COMPLEMENTARY    DEVAS.  [chap. 

hibernal,  or  any  other  ingredients  which  give  to  each 
god  his  own  peculiar  character.  When  we  have  to  deal 
with  gods  such  as  Surya  or  Helios,  the  names  suffice. 
But  in  other  cases,  such  as  that  of  Mitra  or  Varuna, 
we  must  go  further  and  discover  for  ourselves  in 
some  of  their  epithets,  in  certain  legends  told  about 
them  or  in  prayers  addressed  to  them,  the  true  con- 
stituent elements  of  their  character,  such  as  it  was 
imagined  by  their  worshipjDers.  It  is  true  that  when 
the  agents  behind  the  phenomena  of  nature  have 
once  become  Devas  or  gods,  they  often  lose  the 
traces  of  their  physical  character ;  they  are  simply 
conceived  as  ideal,  all-powerful,  all-wise  beings  who 
are  able  to  reward  or  to  punish  the  children  of  men. 
Thus  in  many  of  the  verses  addressed  to  Mitra 
in  the  Veda,  we  find  him  represented  no  longer  as 
connected  with  the  sun,  but  as  greater  than  heaven 
and  earth,  nay  as  supporting  all  the  gods,  as  watch- 
ing with  open  eyes  over  the  whole  world,  and  as 
protecting  those  who  obey  his  commands  \  It  may 
be  said  that  in  that  case  Mitra  is  no  longer  the  sun, 
the  material  and  visible  sun.  He  never  was  that. 
But  is  he  therefore  a  fetish,  or  a  totem,  or  an  ances- 
tral spirit  ?  If  we  call  Mitra  the  god  of  the  sun, 
wre  use  a  phrase  which  no  Vedic  poet  would  ever 
use.  He  could  not  speak  of  a  devaA  suryasya,  a  god 
of  the  sun.  To  him  the  deva  Mitra  would  express 
the  agent  within  or  behind  the  sun,  but  whether 
he  would  distinguish  the  agent,  as  such,  from  the 
sphere  of  his  agency,  is  more  than  we  can  say.  All 
we  can  do,  if  we  wish  to  understand  the  hymns  of 
the  Big-veda,  is  to  watch  the  historical  process  by 

1  Eig-veda  X,  i,  41. 


n]  COMPLEMENTARY    DEVAS.  125 

which  in  the  minds  of  the  ancient  Aryas  the  sun, 
by  a  kind  of  involuntary  abstraction,  became  slowly 
divested  of  its  purely  material  attributes,  and  was 
raised  gradually  to  a  higher  and  higher,  nay  to 
a  supernatural  rank,  as  the  supporter  of  the  world, 
the  bringer  of  light,  the  guardian  of  truth,  the 
avenger  of  evil,  the  friend  of  man. 

Mitra  and  Varcma. 

There  is  unfortunately  one  hymn  only  in  the  Veda 
addressed  to  Mitra  exclusively.  Generally  Mitra  is 
so  closely  united  with  Vanma,  that  the  two  seem  to 
form  but  one  deity  \  and  it  is  in  that  united  capacity, 
as  the  two  Mitras  or  the  two  Varunas,  that  they 
make  the  sky  to  shine,  send  down  rain,  look  down 
from  heaven,  dispel  darkness  and  falsehood,  are  lords 
of  light  and  right,  righteous  themselves,  avengers  of 
falsehood,  and  deliverers  from  evil.  Yet  they  are 
distinguished  from  each  other  even  by  the  poets  who 
address  them  in  common.  VarUna  is  called  the  lord, 
the  unconquerable  guide,  and  thus  far,  the  greater 
of  the  two ;  Mitra  is  praised  as  calling  man  back  to 
his  work  (Rig-veda  VII,  36,  2)  in  the  morning.  If 
in  the  compound  name  Mitra  always  stands  first, 
this  may  be  due  either  to  a  recollection  that  as 
representing  the  rising  sun  Mitra  was  originally  the 
principal  and  more  important  partner,  but  it  may  also 
be  due  to  the  well-known  fact  that  in  all  Dvandvas 
the  shorter  word  comes  first  (Pan.  II,  2,  34). 

In  the  Avesta  the  name  of  Vanma  has  vanished, 
but  his  place  as  the  twin  companion  of  Mithra  has 
been  taken  by  no  less  a  deity  than  Ahura  (Mazda) 

1  Muir,  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  v,  68. 


126  MITKA    AND    VARLLVA.  [cHAP. 

himself1.  It  would  be  wrong  to  say  that  the  Veclic 
VaruTia  has  become  Ahura  Mazda  in  the  Avesta. 
No  individual  god  ever  becomes  another  individual 
god,  and  there  are  things  ascribed  to  Ahura  Mazda 
which  were  never  ascribed  to  Vanma.  Thus  Ahura 
Mazda  is  said  to  have  created  Mithra,  a  paternity 
never  claimed  by  Vanma.  But  the  place  and  posi- 
tion of  the  Asura  Vanma  as  the  most  powerful  and 
sometimes  supreme  deity  has  certainly  been  taken 
in  the  Avesta  by  him  who  is  called  Ahura  koj  lt;oyr]v, 
that  is  Ahura  Mazda  or  Ormazd.  Mithra  is  in  that 
case  lord  of  wide  pastures,  who  has  a  thousand  ears 
and  ten  thousand  eyes,  and  he  is  invoked  with  Ahura 
just  as  Mitra  was  invoked  with  Vanma.  Thus  we 
read  in  the  Mihir  Yasht,  XXVIII,  113,'  May  Mithra 
and  Ahura  (instead  of  Mitra- Varwiau  in  the  Veda 2), 
the  high  gods,  come  to  us  for  help  ;'  and  again, 
XXXV,  145,  'We  sacrifice  unto  Mithra  and  Ahura, 
the  two  great,  imperishable,  holy  gods  ; '  and  Khor- 
shad  Nyayish  6,  '  We  sacrifice  unto  the  bright,  un- 
dying, shining,  swift-horsed  Sun  ;  we  sacrifice  unto 
Mithra,  the  lord  of  wide  pastures,  who  is  truth- 
speaking,  a  chief  in  assemblies,  with  a  thousand 
ears,  well  shapen,  with  ten  thousand  ears,  high,  with 
full  knowledge,  strong,  sleepless,  and  ever  awake ; 
we  sacrifice  unto  Mithra,  the  lord  of  all  countries, 
whom  Ahura  Mazda  made  the  most  glorious  of 
all  the  gods  in  the  world  unseen.     So  may  Mithra 

1  Though  it  seems  impossible  to  identify  Ahuro  mazdiio  with 
the  Vedic  Asuro  vedha/«,  on  account  of  the  initial  consonants 
m  in  Zend  and  v  in  Sanskrit,  their  substantial  identity  can  no 
longer  be  doubted. 

2  Like  Mitra,  the  two  Mitras,  and  Varuwa,  the  two  Varimas,  we 
find  in  the  Avesta  also  such  forms  as  Ahuraeibya  Mithraeibya. 


Il]  MITRA    AND    VARUAA.  1 27 

and  Ahura,  the  two  great  gods,  come  to  us  for 
help.'  Here  we  see  as  it  were  before  our  eyes  the 
growth  of  a  solar  god,  disengaging  himself  from  his 
physical  antecedents,  and  rising  higher  and  higher 
to  the  stage  of  a  moral  and  purely  spiritual  being. 
It  might  seem  even  as  if  a  distinction  was  made 
between  the  Sun  and  Mithra,  but  that  distinction 
only  shows  that  Mithra  had  risen  above  his  original 
cradle,  and  that  therefore  he  might  be  said  to  come 
before  the  Sun,  and  to  be  the  lord  of  the  Sun. 

This  becomes  very  clear  if  wTe  compare  Vendidad 
XXI,  hi,  with  the  Mihir  Yasht  IV.  In  the  former 
passage  we  find  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars 
invoked  : — 

'  Up  !  rise  up  and  roll  along !  thou  swift-horsed 
sun,  above  Hara  Berezaiti1,  and  produce  light  for 
the  world.  .  .  .' 

'  Up !  rise  up,  thou  moon,  that  dost  keep  in  thee 
the  seed  of  the  bull,  rise  up  above  Hara  Berezaiti, 
and  produce  light  for  the  world.  .  .  .' 

'  Up !  rise  up,  ye  stars,  that  have  in  you  the  seed 
of  waters,  rise  up  above  Hara  Berezaiti,  and  produce 
light  for  the  world.  .  .  .' 

In  the  Mihir  Yasht  we  read  :  '  We  sacrifice  unto 
Mithra,  the  lord  of  wide  pastures,  .  .  .  sleepless,  and 
ever  awake  ;'  '  Who  first  of  the  heavenly  gods  reaches 
over  the  Hara,  before  the  undying,  swift-horsed  sun 
who,  foremost  in  golden  array,  takes  hold  of  the 
beautiful  summits  and  from  thence  looks  over  the 
abode  of  the  Aryas  with  a  beneficent  eye.' 

In  the  first  passage,  it  is  true,  the  name  of  Mithra 

1  The  mountain  Alborz,  south  of  the  Caspian,  but  supposed 
to  surround  the  whole  earth. 


128  MITRA    AND    VARUAA.  [chap. 

does  not  occur ;  but  from  the  second  passage  where 
Mithras  name  is  mentioned,  it  is  quite  clear  that 
under  the  name  of  the  sun  the  same  deity  was  in- 
tended. If  we  once  begin  to  refine  and  attempt  to 
reduce  all  the  utterances  of  the  Vedic  and  Avestic 
poets  to  strict  logic,  we  can  argue  for  ever.  We 
could  say,  that  Mithra  could  not  be  the  sun,  because 
the  sun  is  said  to  come  before  him,  as  if  the  rays  of 
the  morning  sun  could  not  be  called  the  forerunners 
of  the  sun.  Such  difficulties  do  not  exist  in  a  poet's 
mind.  They  are  of  our  own  making,  and  belong 
altogether  to  a  later  phase  of  thought.  If  we  say 
that  Mithra  represents  the  sun,  that  he  is  a  god  of 
a  solar  character,  and  that  his  name  originally  meant 
the  sun,  we  have  said  all  that  in  our  modern  lan- 
guage we  can  say. 

How  to  compare  Vedic  and  Greek  Gods. 

We  must,  however,  once  more  ask  the  question 
what  we  can  possibly  mean  when  we  compare  a 
Vedic  god  with  a  Greek  or  Italian  god. 

When  we  say  that  the  Vedic  Dyaush  pita,  or  the 
Proto-Aryan  Dyeus  pater,  is  the  same  god  as  the 
Greek  Zev?  irarrfp,  we  do  not  mean  that  he  migrated 
as  Wodan  was  supposed  to  have  done,  from  the' 
Caucasus  to  Germany,  and  that  when  he  had  settled 
in  Germany  he  assumed  the  warlike  character  of 
the  Eddie  Tyr.  All  that  is  meant,  and  all  that  can 
be  meant,  is  that  when  the  sky  in  some  of  its  aspects 
had  been  conceived  as  an  agent  and  called  Dyaus  or 
Dyeus,  that  name  with  thousands  of  other  names 
was  carried  along  by  the  Aryan  speakers  in  their 
migrations  from  South  to  North,  or  from  East  to 
West.     It  formed  part  of  their  common  Aryan  heir- 


n]  HOW  TO  COMPARE  VEDIC  AND  GREEK  GODS.        1 29 

loom,  quite  as  much  as  the  numerals  from  one  to 
ten,  or  the  names  for  father,  mother,  brother,  and 
all  the  rest.  The  concept  of  this  agent  of  the  sky 
was  modified  of  course  according  to  the  various 
aspects  which  the  sky  presented  to  the  thoughts 
of  men  in  Persia,  Greece,  Italy,  and  Germany. 

Many  things  might  be  told  of  this  Dyaus,  accord- 
ing to  the  ever-varying  character  of  those  who  in- 
voked and  worshipped  him,  till  hardly  anything 
remained  of  his  original  conception.  Still,  though 
in  one  sense  it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  Eddie  Tyr 
is  no  longer  the  same  god  as  the  Vedic  Dyaus,  the 
name  is  like  a  telegraphic  wire  that  connects  the 
message  as  delivered  in  India  in  Sanskrit,  with 
the  message  as  delivered  in  Iceland  in  Old  Norse. 

The  transition  from  deva,  bright,  to  deva,  divine, 
may  seem  to  us  difficult  to  understand,  but  to  the 
people  in  India  the  growth  of  heavenly  brightness 
into  celestial  majesty  was  almost  inevitable. 

If  this  Dyaus  (sky)  was  called  deva,  deva,  it  should 
be  remembered,  was  only  an  adjective  derived  from 
the  same  root  that  yielded  Dyaus,  gen.  divas.  It 
meant  therefore,  originally,  no  more  than  what  the 
name  Dyaus  meant,  bright  with  the  brightness  of 
the  sky. 

The  brilliant  Haritas. 

If  the  Haritas,  the  horses  of  the  morning,  were 
called  devas  or  devis,  the  etymological  meaning  of 
deva,  bright,  is  still  clearly  perceptible,  but  it 
gradually  fades  away  and  assumes  a  more  general 
meaning,  a  meaning  which  is  constantly  modified  by 
the  various  objects  of  which  it  is  predicated.  If 
deva  as  applied  to  the  Haritas  means  still  brilliant, 
if  applied  to  the  seven  sisters   it  begins  to  mean 

VOL.  I.  K 


130  THE    BRILLIANT    HARITAS.  [chap. 

something  more  and  something  less,  and  we  cannot 
help  translating  it  in  the  end  by  goddess  or  by- 
divine.  In  Greek  Charis  has  become  a  goddess, 
a  devi,  0ed,  the  daughter  of  the  two  principal  deities, 
Zeus  and  Here,  and  there  is  nothing  left,  either  in 
the  name  of  Charis  or  in  that  of  0ed,  to  remind  us  of 
the  physical  brilliancy  of  the  apparition  to  which 
she  owed  her  origin.  The  same  apparition  was  in- 
terpreted in  different  ways  in  India  and  in  Greece, 
though  the  old  name  was  retained.  But  even  if  the 
name  had  been  different,  no  one  acquainted  with 
the  growth  of  mythological  thought  and  language 
would  hesitate  for  one  moment  to  recognise  in  the 
Haritas,  the  rays  of  the  morning,  the  red  horses  of 
Indra,  as  well  as  in  Aphrodite  or  Aphrogeneia,  rising 
from  the  waves  of  the  sea,  'ApaSvofxeprj,  one  of  the 
many  names  of  the  cloud-born  Dawn  \  And  what 
was  more  natural  than  that  these  apparitions  should 
be  called,  not  only  deva,  bright,  but  also  a</ara, 
never  ageing,  considering  that  all  brightness  came 
from  them,  and  that  they  were  always  the  same, 
never  changing,  never  dying. 

Agni,  Fire,  Light,  Sun. 
Agni,  fire,  though  quenched,  could  never  be  alto- 
gether destroyed.  Agni  might  hide  for  a  time  in 
the  waters  or  in  the  clouds,  but  men  were  always 
able  to  make  him  return  either  by  rubbing  sparks 
of  fire  out  of  two  pieces  of  dry  wood  (hence  he  was 
called  the  son  of  strength,  sahasa/i  putra,  will-fire, 
or  dvimatri,  SifxyJTcop,  bimatris,  having  two  mothers, 
the  two  fire-sticks),  or  by  carefully  guarding,  tend- 
ing, or  worshipping  him  when  hidden  in  the  ashes 

1  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  474. 


Il]  AGNI,    FIRE,    LIGHT,    SUN.  131 

on  the  family  hearth,  hence  called  the  (vispati)  lord 
and  friend  of  the  house.  When  every  morning  the 
light  appeared  again  as  the  morning  sun  from  out 
of  the  sea,  or  from  between  his  parents,  heaven  and 
earth,  it  was  greeted  as  Agni,  and  was  likewise 
called  the  son  of  strength,  as  if  he  had  been  pro- 
duced by  the  same  rubbing  in  the  sky  by  which  he 
was  produced  on  earth,  the  son  of  the  waters,  or 
the  son  of  heaven  and  earth.  As  the  kindling  of 
the  fire  on  the  hearth  or  the  house-altar  coincided 
with  the  rising  of  the  sun,  it  was  fondly  imagined 
by  the  Vedic  poets  that  the  return  of  light  was 
actually  caused  by  the  pious  acts  and  prayers  of 
the  priests,  while  in  other  places  (Rig-veda  III,  7,  7) 
Agni,  as  the  immortal  god,  is  said  to  instigate  the 
earthly  sacrifices.  It  was  only  a  new  application  of 
the  old  post  hoc  propter  hoc  argument.  With  every 
new  phenomenon  in  which  the  presence  of  Agni 
was  perceived  or  suspected,  he  became  more  and 
more  polyonymous,  and  frequently  mixed  up  with 
other  gods  on  whose  province  he  was  constantly 
encroaching. 

Indra. 

Like  Agni,  Indra,  also,  was  not  restricted  to  one 
single  manifestation  in  nature.  He  was  conceived  as 
bright  (deva),  as  the  enemy  of  darkness,  as  always 
returning  when  his  aid  was  wanted,  as  ever  young, 
ever  strong,  ever  living.  His  starting-point,  how- 
ever, if  we  derive  his  name  indra  from  the  same  root 
as  ind-u,  raindrop,  was  the  rain  of  which  he  was 
supposed  to  be  the  agent,whether  as  giver  or  deliverer, 
being  at  the  same  time  the  giver  of  health  and  life,  the 
conqueror  of  the  dark  clouds,  the  vigorous  fighter, 
the  restorer  of  light,  the  ever-victorious  hero. 

k  2 


132  USHAS.  [chap. 

Ushas. 

This  character  of  perpetual  youth,  of  ever-return- 
ing life,  is  strongly  marked  in  Ushas,  the  Dawn. 
Though  she  seems  to  die  every  day  as  soon  as  the 
sun  is  born,  she  appears  again  and  again,  a  new 
dawn,  yet  always  the  same,  young,  bright  and  ever- 
lasting. 

Devas  not  restricted  to  one  single  Phenomenon. 

What  we  must  guard  against  is  imagining  that 
these  gods  of  nature  were  restricted  to  one  single 
phenomenon,  even  to  that  which  may  be  supposed 
to  have  given  birth  to  them.  Agni  was  not  simply 
the  actual  fire  deified,  he  was  never  restricted  to  the 
hearth  or  to  the  sun.  He  was  from  the  very 
beginning  something  over  and  above  these  pheno- 
menal manifestations,  a  power  that  might  manifest 
itself  again  and  again  wherever  there  was  an  oppor- 
tunity, whether  in  the  sky,  or  in  the  sun,  or  even 
in  the  moon  ;  a  something  never  to  be  grasped  all 
at  once,  an  agent  apart  from  his  acts.  It  was  the 
same  with  Surya,  the  sun,  with  Pan/anya,  the  cloud, 
with  Vanma,  the  sky,  but  it  was  more  particularly 
so  in  the  case  of  Indra,  who  being  the  most  powerful 
of  the  Devas  was  capable  of  almost  anything,  from 
the  killing  of  a  dark  demon  to  the  creation  and 
governing  of  the  world.  We  must  carefully  keep 
this  in  mind,  if  we  wish  to  enter  fully  into  the 
thoughts  of  the  Vedic  poets.  If,  in  saying  that 
Agni  (fire)  created  heaven  and  earth,  the  Vedic 
poets  had  thought  of  the  fire  on  the  hearth  only, 
their  words  would  seem  quite  unintelligible.  But  if 
they  had  recognised  in  Agni  an  omnipotent  char- 


Il]      DEVAS  NOT  RESTRICTED  TO  ONE  PHENOMENON.       I33 

acter,  manifested  in  the  fire,  but  in  many  other 
brilliant  phenomena  also,  there  would  be  nothing 
absurd  in  their  ascribing  to  him  the  supporting  of 
heaven  and  earth,  nay  the  bringing  forth  of  the  sun 
(Rig-veda  V,  6,  4)  and  the  giving  life  to  plants,  to 
animals,  and  to  men. 

It  is  by  ignoring  this  vast  background  of  most 
of  the  Vedic  gods  that  their  character  has  been  so 
much  misunderstood  by  modern  scholars,  in  spite 
of  the  warning  addressed  to  them  by  native  inter- 
preters, more  particularly  by  Yaska. 

Asvinau. 

The  twin-gods,  the  Asvinau  for  instance,  have 
been  identified  with  the  morning  and  evening  stars, 
but  it  has  never  been  proved  that  even  their  first 
beginning  lies  with  these  stars  or  these  two  ap- 
paritions of  one  star.  Simple  stars  do  not  seem 
to  have  been  theogonic  with  the  Vedic  Indians, 
and  stars  so  completely  separated  as  the  morning 
and  evening  stars  would  not  easily  have  been  trans- 
formed into  a  couple  of  inseparable  twins,  unless 
we  suppose  that  their  identity  was  known  to  the 
astronomers  of  that  early  time.  But  even  sup- 
posing that  these  stars  had  served  as  a  first  impulse, 
the  Asvins  covered  a  far  larger  area  of  ancient 
thought.  They  were,  as  I  tried  to  show  long  ago, 
in  my  Science  of  Language  (vol.  ii,  p.  608),  corre- 
lative deities  representing  morning  and  evening, 
light  and  darkness  in  their  never-ceasing  return. 

Yaska. 

Yaska  fully  understood  their  character  when  he 
said   that   the   one   represents   the    overcoming   of 


^4  YASKA.  [CHAP. 

darkness  by  light,  the  other  the  overcoming  of 
light  by  darkness.  This  seemed  to  us  formerly 
too  abstract  a  definition  for  such  dramatic  gods, 
and  yet  it  contained  much  of  truth.  But  Yaska 
knew  of  other  interpretations  also. 

Others,  he  adds,  had  explained  the  Asvins  as 
heaven  and  earth,  as  day  and  night,  as  sun  and 
moon,  nay  even  as  two  virtuous  kings.  All  this, 
with  the  exception  of  the  last  explanation,  is  perfectly 
right,  if  only  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  background  of 
the  Vedic  gods  is  always  vast  and  vague,  and  that 
the  same  deity  may  be  recognised  in  the  sky,  in  the 
day,  in  the  sun,  nay  even  in  the  morning  star,  and 
on  the  other  side,  in  the  earth,  the  night,  the-  moon 
and  the  evening  star.  The  idea  that  the  two 
Asvins  were  two  virtuous  kings,  or  two  horsemen, 
is  clearly  a  secondary  development.  I  doubt  even 
whether  their  name  had  originally  anything  to  do 
with  their  riding  on  horseback,  and  I  should  much 
prefer  to  derive  it  as  a  metronymic  from  asva,  the 
mare,  the  recognised  name  of  their  mother,  the 
dawn,  or  the  morning  sun  (fem.).  At  all  events 
the  two  Asvins  must  not  be  narrowed  down  to  two 
stars,  the  morning  and  evening  stars,  unless  these 
stars  are  taken  as  symbols  only  of  all  that  is  meant 
by  morning  and  evening. 

Varuwa,  and  the  Moon. 
It  would  be  a  still  more  serious  mistake  if,  as 
Oldenberg  seems  to  propose,  we  were  to  reduce 
Varima  to  a  mere  representative  of  the  moon.  The 
moon  belongs  certainly  to  the  domain  of  Varuna, 
the  dark  over-arching  sky,  but  to  say  that  the  moon 
was  originally  Varuna  or  Varuna  the  moon,  would 


Il]  VARU2VA,    AND    THE    MOON.  1 35 

be  an  insult  to  the  poets  who  celebrated  that 
majestic  deity  as  having  fashioned  heaven  and  earth, 
as  embracing  the  three  worlds,  as  having  opened 
boundless  paths  for  the  sun,  nay,  as  having  caused 
the  golden  sun  to  shine. 

The  True  Theogony. 
Nowhere  better  than  in  the  hymns  of  the  Veda 
can  we  see  how,  without  any  great  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  early  speakers  and  thinkers,  a  class  of  beings 
came  thus  to  be  called  into  existence,  all  called 
bright  (deva)  and  immortal  (aum'ta),  all  famous 
for  performing  valiant  deeds  which  no  one  else,  cer- 
tainly no  mortal,  could  ever  have  performed.  Here 
we  can  see  the  true  theogony,  not  only  of  India,  but 
of  the  whole  Aryan  world.  Nature  led  up  to  nature's 
gods,  and  what  we  call  the  forces  of  nature,  or  the 
manifestations  of  rational  or  divine  powers  in  nature, 
became,  almost  by  necessity,  the  first  members  of  the 
Aryan  Pantheon,  whether  on  the  Himalaya  or  on 
Mount  Olympus. 

Interference  among  the  Gods. 
But  the  ancient  observers  of  nature  were  not 
satisfied  with  the  names  of  single  gods,  as  repre- 
sentatives of  certain  phenomena  of  nature.  As 
many  of  these  phenomena  took  place  at  the  same 
time,  and  as  they  often  interfered  with  one  another 
and  influenced  one  another,  such  as  the  sun  and 
the  moon,  the  rain  and  the  earth,  the  night  and 
the  dawn,  the  lightning  and  the  clouds,  those  who 
were  at  all  interested  in  the  events  which  took 
place  before  their  eyes  every  day,  every  month  or 
year,  could  not  help  telling  of  certain  acts,  whether 
of  love  or  of  hatred,  performed  by  the  actors  engaged 


136  INTEEFEEENCE    AMONG    THE    GODS.  [chap. 

in  the  drama  of  nature.  We  may  seem  to  ourselves 
much  more  philosophical,  when  we  speak  of  the 
power  of  gravitation,  or  of  forces,  luminous,  caloric, 
magnetic,  or  electrical,  as  if  we  knew  what  a  force 
means.  The  ancients,  when  they  saw  the  effect  of 
such  powers  on  themselves  or  upon  each  other,  had 
to  ascribe  them  all  to  a  will,  nor  could  they  conceive 
of  any  will  except  as  that  of  an  agent,  or  a  person. 
The  persons,  therefore,  who  represented  certain  bene- 
ficial or  noxious  acts,  would  naturally  assume  a  corre- 
sponding character,  and  as  most  of  the  acts  ascribed 
to  them,  such  as  thunder  and  lightning,  the  giving  of 
light  and  warmth  and  fertility,  or  the  destruction  of 
the  darkness  of  the  night  or  of  a  storm-cloud,  were 
far  beyond  the  powers  of  ordinary  mortals,  the  char- 
acter of  these  agents  would  of  necessity  become 
more  and  more  exalted,  superhuman,  or  supernatural ; 
while  the  constant  recurrence  of  their  manifestations 
would  secure  to  them  the  name  of  everlasting,  never 
ageing,  or  immortal  beings.  However  human  they 
might  seem  to  be  in  some  of  their  mutual  relations, 
in  their  respective  powers  and  performances,  they 
were  all  superhuman,  supernatural,  and  in  the  end 
divine,  originally  deva,  or  bright.  Even  the  most 
thoughtless  person  would  have  felt  that  his  well- 
being,  nay  his  very  life  depended  on  the  light  of 
the  sun,  the  rain  of  the  sky,  or  the  refreshing 
breezes  of  the  wind,  while  his  home  and  his  family 
were  constantly  at  the  mercy  of  the  scorching  sun, 
of  lightning,  fire,  and  water. 

Human  Feeling  of  Dependence. 

Need  we  wonder  then  that  a  feeling  of  dependence 
also  sprang  up  at  a  very  early  time,  not  simply  with 


n]  HUMAN    FEELING    OF    DEPENDENCE.  I37 

regard  to  thunder,  lightning, or  rain,  but  likewise  with 
reference  to  those  agents  who  had  been  recognised 
as  causing  these  phenomena,  hidden,  yet  manifested, 
both  in  their  regular  activity  and  in  the  irregular 
convulsions  of  nature.  In  this  way  we  can  see  how 
w^hat  we  call  mythology,  even  in  its  religious  aspect, 
so  far  from  being  irrational,  was  originally  the  most 
rational  view  of  the  world,  was  in  fact  the  only 
possible  philosophy,  though  clothed  as  yet  in  very 
helpless  language.  Let  us  only  remember  that  most 
of  these  manifestations  were  luminous  and  constantly 
recurring,  and  we  shall  easily  understand  the  origin 
of  the  Devas  (bright  ones),  of  the  AmWtas  (the  im- 
mortals), who  were  believed  to  be  able  to  confer 
benefits  or  to  cause  injuries  to  men,  who  acted  either 
in  union  or  opposed  to  each  other,  and  who,  if  they 
acted  at  all  like  human  beings,  were  supposed  to  be 
influenced  by  kind  words  (hymns  of  praise),  or  by 
liberal  gifts  (sacrifices) ;  who  would  be,  in  fact,  and 
do  exactly  what  we  find  the  Yedic  Devas  to  be  and 
to  do. 

Polytheistic  Family-organisation. 
In  the  Greek  pantheon  we  see  a  further  advance. 
Here  the  different  gods  have  been  formed  into  a 
family,  they  are  married  promiscuously,  yet  not 
quite  so  promiscuously  as  in  the  Veda,  they  have 
sons  and  daughters.  Sisters  and  brothers  are  either 
friendly  or  they  are  jealous,  opposing  each  other,  or 
combining  against  their  parents.  As  there  was  a 
head  of  a  family  and  a  supreme  ruler  in  ancient 
families  and  in  the  ancient  states  of  Greece,  we  find 
in  the  Olympian  pantheon  also  a  recognised  head, 
and  a  king  of  gods  and  men,  whom  not  only  men, 


138  POLYTHEISTIC    FAMILY-OKGANISATION.  [chap. 

but  the  gods  themselves  had  to  obey.  It  has  been 
said  that  such  an  organisation  is  entirely  absent  in 
the  Veda ;  but  the  first  germs  of  it  seem  to  me 
clearly  discernible.  Heaven  and  earth  are  in  the 
Veda  also  husband  and  wife,  the  dawn  or  Ushas 
is  the  daughter  of  the  sky,  the  storm-winds,  or 
Maruts,  or  Rudras,  are  his  sons.  Day  and  night 
(the  Asvins)  are  brothers  or  twins,  sometimes  called 
the  sons  of  the  Dawn  or  of  the  night1,  sometimes 
represented  as  the  lovers  of  Surya,  that  is,  of  the 
sun,  conceived  as  feminine  and  called  the  daughter 
of  Surya,  the  sun,  conceived  as  a  masculine.  Sun 
and  moon,  which  have  supplied  the  theme  of  so 
many  love  stories  in  other  mythologies,  are  much 
less  prolific  in  their  legendary  growth  in  the  Veda, 
for  the  simple  reason,  I  believe,  that  the  moon  as 
well  as  the  sun  remained  in  Sanskrit  a  masculine 
long  after  the  close  of  the  mythological  period. 

Henotheism. 

It  is  necessary  if  we  want  to  enter  into  the  true 
spirit  of  Vedic  mythology  and  religion,  to  wean  our 
minds  from  certain  preconceived  opinions  chiefly  de- 
rived from  the  mythologies  and  religions  of  other 
nations.  Because  certain  Devas  of  the  Veda  have 
the  same  name  as  the  gods  of  other  Aryan  nations, 
it  has  naturally  been  supposed  that  they  are  of  the 
same  flesh  and  blood  as  the  6eoi  of  the  Greeks,  the 
Dii  or  Divi  of  the  Romans,  the  Tivar  in  Old  Norse. 
In  a  certain  sense,  no  doubt,  this  is  true.  They 
were  all  conceived  originally  as  the  agents  behind 
the  great  drama  of  nature,  they  were  all,  at  least  in 
the  beginning,  physical  gods.     As  these  phenomena 

1  Yaska  XII,  2. 


Il]  HENOTHEISM.  139 

were  many,  the  gods  also  were  many,  and  it  seemed 
most  natural  to  comprehend  this  stage  of  mytho- 
logical and  religious  thought  under  the  familiar 
name  of  polytheism.  But  we  must  learn  to  distin- 
guish between  different  kinds  of  polytheism.  The 
Greek  religion,  as  we  know  it,  may  fairly  be  called 
polytheistic,  for  it  not  only  recognises  the  co- 
existence of  numerous  gods,  but  has  reduced  them 
to  a  certain  system,  with  Zeus  at  their  head,  his 
children  more  or  less  on  the  same  level  among 
themselves,  and  all  the  rest  as  subject  to  him, 
reflecting,  in  fact,  the  patriarchal  family  system  of 
ancient  Greece.     It  was  not  so  in  the  Vedic  age. 

Henotheism  and  Polytheism. 

The  Vedic  hymns  enable  us  to  go,  as  it  were, 
behind  this  well-organised  polytheism,  and  to  watch 
the  growth  of  single  gods,  each  standing  by  himself 
before  the  mind  of  the  worshipper,  each  receiving 
for  the  time  being  those  superlative  attributes 
which  belong  to  a  Deva,  when  free  from  the  limiting 
presence  of  other  Devas.  Such  a  stage  was  not  only 
perfectly  natural,  it  was  really  inevitable  during 
a  period  when  families  lived  by  themselves  in 
hamlets  rather  than  in  villages,  when  they  met  on 
rare  occasions  only,  when  anything  like  social  life 
or  political  intercourse  was  as  yet  unthought  of, 
when  therefore  each  god  was  supreme  to  his  own 
poet  and  his  own  worshippers,  and  to  the  small 
family  or  clan  that  might  be  growing  up  in  their 
settlement.  Such  a  state  of  religious  thought  did 
not  exclude  the  possibility  of  other  neighbouring 
gods,  it  did  not  even  ignore  the  fact  of  their  exis- 
tence ;  only  these  neighbouring  gods  had  to  stand 


I40  HENOTHEISM    AND    POLYTHEISM.  [chap. 

aside  for  a  time  and  were  not  allowed  to  limit  in 
any  way  the  power  and  influence  of  the  local  god 
who,  however  insignificant  he  might  seem  to  others, 
was  to  his  own  people  and  his  own  worshippers 
their  real  god,  their  old  god,  and,  for  a  time,  their 
only  god.  This  very  important  and  characteristic 
stage  in  the  early  growth  of  religion,  so  well  known 
to  all  who  have  studied  the  Veda1,  should  be  care- 
fully distinguished  from  Polytheism  on  one  side,  and 
Monotheism  on  the  other.  In  order  to  have  a  name 
for  it,  I  proposed  to  call  it  Kathenotheism,  or  by  a 
shorter  name,  Henotheism.  If  a  better  name  can  be 
found,  I  do  not  object,  as  long  as  the  facts  implied 
by  it  are  fully  recognised.  We  might  really  have 
postulated  such  a  stage  a  priori,  as  a  necessary 
stage  in  the  development  of  mythological  religion, 
but  it  shows  once  more  the  great  importance  of  the 
Veda  that  it  should  have  preserved  for  us  the  clear 
traces  of  such  a  phase  in  the  actual  history  of 
religious  thought  ;  it  shows  the  superiority  of  a 
history  of  religion,  if  properly  understood,  to  all 
attempted  philosophies  of  religion.  The  best  proof 
of  the  reality  of  this  stage  of  religious  thought,  which 
I  designated  as  Henotheism,  is  its  having  been  re- 
cognised at  once  in  other  religions.  What  Maspero 
describes  as  a  characteristic  phase  of  the  ancient 
Egyptian  religion,  what  is  it  but  what  is  called 
Henotheism  in  the  Veda  ?  '  Each  of  the  feudal  gods,' 
he  writes  (Dawn  of  Civilisation,  p.  101),  'naturally 
cherished  pretensions  to  universal  dominion,  and 
proclaimed  himself  the  suzerain,  the  father  of  all 

1  Muir,  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  v,  pp.  6,  7.  On  the  same 
kind  of  Henotheism  in  the  Mahabharata,  see  Dahlmann, 
pp.   237-241. 


n]  HENOTHEISM    AND    POLYTHEISM.  141 

the  gods,  as  the  local  prince  was  the  suzerain,  the 
father  of  all  men  ;  but  the  effective  suzerainty  of 
god  or  prince  really  ended  when  that  of  his  peers 
ruling  over  the  adjacent  nomes  began.'  If  we  once 
perceive  clearly  the  true  character  of  Henotheism, 
not  as  forgetfulness  of  all  other  gods,  arising  from 
an  enthusiastic  devotion  to  one,  but  as  devotion  to 
one  single  god,  without  any  thought  as  yet  of  any 
possible  rivals,  we  shall  see  how  it  removes  what 
seemed  to  be  glaring  contradictions  in  the  religion 
of  the  Yeda  itself.  Of  course  we  have  no  right 
to  expect  a  complete  system  in  the  hymns  of  the 
Eig-veda.  Still  even  thus  it  was  startling  to  see 
nearly  every  one  of  the  great  Vedic  gods  addressed 
in  various  hymns  as  supreme,  as  independent,  or  at 
all  events  as  greater  than  any  other  being,  whether 
human  or  divine. 

Solar  and  Meteorological  Interpretation. 
But  after  some  of  the  apparent  contradictions  in 
the  thoughts  of  the  Vedic  poets  had  thus  been 
rendered  intelligible,  there  remained  others  equally 
puzzling,  which  for  a  long  time  divided  the  inter- 
preters of  the  Veda  into  two  classes,  or,  as  some 
people  would  have  it,  into  two  camps.  The  two 
subjects  of  permanent  interest  to  the  Vedic  poets 
were  (i)  the  sunrise,  the  daily  triumph  of  light  over 
darkness,  and  the  annual  triumph  of  spring  over 
winter,  and  (2)  the  thunderstorm,  or  the  triumph  of 
a  bright  god  over  the  dark  clouds  and  the  rescue 
of  fertilising  rain  from  the  prison  in  which  it  seemed 
to  be  held  during  the  season  of  heat  and  drought. 
The  chief  actor  in  the  first  drama  was  Agni,  as 
the  light  in   the  sun,  in  the  second  Indra  as  the 


142      SOLAR  AND  METEOROLOG.   INTERPRETATION,     [chap. 

champion  of  the  blue  sky.  Other  gods  assisted  in 
these  battles,  but  the  chief  part  devolved  on  the 
god  of  light  (Agni),  and  the  god  of  rain  (Indra). 
We  should  have  expected  the  sun,  under  its  various 
names  of  Surya,  SavitW,  Aditya,  &c,  to  have  been 
the  prominent  deities  in  the  first  battle,  and  Dyaus, 
the  sky,  in  the  second.  But  though  these  gods 
occur  occasionally  as  conquering  the  darkness  of  the 
night,  or  breaking  the  dark  prison  of  the  rain,  Agni 
and  Indra  have  superseded  them  in  the  minds  of 
most  of  the  Vedic   Rish'm. 

These  two  battles,  which  form  the  staple  of  Vedic 
poetry,  are  often  so  mixed  up  together,  the  imagery 
used  is  often  so  much  alike,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
say  which  was  present  to  the  mind  of  the  poet, 
and  what  was  the  name  of  the  solar  and  luminous 
hero  that  fought  the  battle.  Hence  two  schools  of 
interpretation  arose,  the  Solar  and  the  Meteoro- 
logical, which  tried  to  interpret,  not  only  the 
hymns  of  the  Rig-veda,  but  many  of  the  episodes 
in  other  Aryan  mythologies  also,  by  seeing  in  them 
poetical  metamorphoses  either  of  the  sunrise  or  the 
rising  of  a  thunderstorm.  I  have  always  considered 
the  solar  and  vernal  phraseology  as  the  more 
important  and  as  the  more  primitive  in  the  growth 
of  mythology,  because  the  solar  and  vernal  myths, 
in  their  widest  meaning,  comprehended  all  the 
phenomena  which  are  regular  and  recurrent,  and 
therefore  more  likely  to  produce  a  lasting  impression 
on  the  human  mind.  This  view  has  been  fully 
adopted  even  by  those  who  are  sedulously  repre- 
sented as  opposed  to  the  interpretation  of  mythology 
by  means  of  Vedic  poetry.  Thus  Dr.  Tylor  says 
(Prim.  Cult,  i,  p.  302  ;  ii,  p.  251) : — 


Il]  SOLAR  AXD  METEOROLOG.   INTERPRETATION.         1 43 

'  Day  is  swallowed  up  by  night  to  be  set  free 
again  at  dawn,  and  from  time  to  time  suffers  a  like 
but  shorter  durance  in  the  maw  of  the  eclipse  and 
the  storm-cloud.  Summer  is  overcome  and  prisoned 
by  dark  winter,  to  be  again  set  free.  It  is  a  plausible 
opinion  that  such  scenes  from  the  great  nature- 
drama  of  the  conflict  of  light  and  darkness  are, 
generally  speaking,  the  simple  facts  which  in  many 
ages  and  lands  have  been  told  in  mythic  shape  as 
legends  of  a  hero  or  maiden  drowned  by  a  monster.' 

Dr.  Mehlis  in  his  Grundidee  des  Hermes,  p.  75, 
has  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion,  and  has  ex- 
pressed his  reasons  very  clearly  : — 

'  If  the  immortality  of  the  gods  constitutes  the 
chief  difference  between  them  and  men,  this  con- 
ception, coupled  with  the  name  of  the  Devas  in 
Sanskrit,  i.e.  "the  bright  ones,"  cannot  possibly  be 
derived  from  momentary  and  sporadic  phenomena, 
or  from  gods  who  produced  such  phenomena  as 
storms,  showers  of  rain,  lightning  and  thunder.  So 
characteristic  a  name  as  deva,  bright  and  divine, 
can  have  its  source  in  consistent  and  regularly 
returning  luminous  phenomena  only,  personified  as 
eternal  and  immortal.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  the  Eudai- 
monia  of  the  gods  could  hardly  have  sprung  from 
personified  meteoric  phenomena,  but  very  well 
from  the  constant  light  and  life-giving  power  of  the 
sun,  which  produces  terror  as  an  exception  only. 

'Another  argument  in  favour  of  the  solar  theory 
is  the  monotheistic  conception  of  the  all-pervading 
power  of  Dyaus,  as  the  bright  sky,  the  first  step, 
which  led  on  to  Dyaush-pitar,  the  Heaven-father 
of  the  Vedas,  who,  like  Zeus,  directs  all  between 
heaven  and  earth,  who  sends  rain  and  lightning, 
clouds  and  sunshine.  .  .  . 

'We  hold  fast,  therefore,  to  the  conviction  that  the 
Aryans  received  the  first  impulse  to  a  conception 
and  a  worship  of  gods  (Devas)  from  the  beneficent 


144       SOLAR  AND  METEOEOLOG.   INTERPRETATION,    [chap. 

daily  apparitions  of  light  and  day,  and  that  the 
meteoric  view  is  a  secondary  one  both  in  time  and 
in  thought.' 

I  believe  that  Prof.  Kuhn  also  arrived  at  the 
same  conclusion,  though  he  always  allowed  a  larger 
field  to  meteoric  than  to  solar  myths  \ 

Other  Vedic  scholars  also  have  come  to  see  that 
the  cause  of  the  disagreement  between  Prof.  Kuhn 
and  myself  was  really  to  be  found  in  the  Vedic 
poets  themselves.  With  them  Indra  fighting  the 
dark  thunder-cloud  was  a  god  of  light  as  much  as 
Agni  conquering  the  darkness  of  the  night.  If  the 
rain  rescued  from  the  cloud  by  the  bright  lightning 
was  called  the  milk  given  by  cows,  the  bright  days 
also  coming  out  one  by  one  from  the  dark  stable  of 
the  night,  were  spoken  of  as  red  cows,  so  that  the 
booty  of  Indra  and  Agni  seemed  to  be  the  same,  at 
least  in  name.  If  Agni  as  the  risen  sun  restored 
light  and  life  to  the  world,  Indra  too,  after  having 
torn  the  black  demon  of  the  cloud  to  pieces,  might 
be  praised  as  the  harbinger  of  light  and  the  lord  of 
the  blue  and  bright  sky.  It  took  some  time  before 
all  this  was  clearly  perceived,  and  the  ambiguity 
inherent  in  Vedic  poetry  fully  understood.  At 
present  no  scholar  hesitates  to  admit  what  M.  Senart 
has  so  well  expressed  when  he  writes  (Leg.  du 
Buddha,  p.  214)  : — 

'  La  lutte  de  la  lumiere  contre  l'obscurite  s'etend 
a  la  lutte  du  matin  contre  l'orage,  et  le  lien  qui  par 
la  rapproche  le  heros  solaire  et  Agni  se  manifeste 
avec  evidence.' 

1  Kuhn,  Herabkunft  des  Feuers,  1859,  pp.  55,  77,  251. 
M.  M.,  Science  of  Language,  1863,  p.  641. 


Il]  SOLAR    AND    METEOROLOG.    INTERPRETATION.       145 

And  again  (p.  283)  : — 

'  II  importe  peii  qu'on  le  considere  dans  ce  cas 
comme  expression  du  soleil  ou  comme  representant 
de  la  foudre.' 

Once  more,  on  p.  321,  M.  Senart  says  : — • 

'  Par  leur  signification  primitive,  ces  traits  divers, 
emprisonnement,  exposition,  exil  parmi  les  bergers 
et  les  troupeaux,  s'appliquent  aussi  bien  au  heros 
solaire  qu'au  representant  du  feu  du  ciel  V 

Dual  Deities. 

In  all  cases  where  two  deities  thus  seem  to  run 
together,  the  Vedic  poets  were  in  the  habit  of 
coupling  their  names  and  speaking  of  them  in  the 
dual.  Indra  and  Agni,  therefore,  being  perceived  to 
perform  the  same  or  very  similar  deeds,  were  in- 
voked very  frequently  in  the  dual  as  Indra  +  Agni. 
There  are  eleven  hymns  in  the  Hig-veda  addressed 
to  this  compound  deity  of  Indragni,  in  which  they 
are  both  praised  as  having  killed  VWtra ;  as  carrying 
the  thunderbolt  in  their  hands,  as  conquering  the 
strongholds  of  the  demons,  as  adorning  the  bright 
heavens,  as  having  the  same  father,  as  being 
brothers,  nay,  twins. 

Soma,  originally  the  rain,  the  favourite  beverage 
of  Indra,  is,  though  rarely,  mentioned  in  these  hymns 
as  offered  sacrificially  to  Agni  also.  And  in  the 
same  manner  the  Maruts,  who  in  their  character  of 
storm-gods  are  the  natural  allies  of  Indra,  are  in 
certain  hymns  introduced  as  the  helpers  of  Agni 2. 

We  see,   therefore,  that  the  common  nature  of 


1  See  also  1.  c,  p.  326. 

2  See   Macdonell  in  an  essay  of  his,    'On   the  god  Trita,' 
published  in  the  Journal  of  the  R.  A.  S.,  1893,  p.  419. 

VOL.  I.  L 


I46  DUAL    DEITIES.  [chap. 

Agni  and  Inclra  and  of  similar  divine  couples  was 
discovered  by  the  Vedic  poets  themselves,  and  we 
can  understand,  what  they  perhaps  were  hardly 
aware  of,  that  this  phase  of  religious  thought  was 
the  natural  result  of  Henotheism.  If  one  god, 
whether  Agni  or  Indra  or  Soma,  had  once  been 
raised  to  the  rank  of  an  only  god,  all  the  great 
phenomena  of  nature,  even  those  which  were  ori- 
ginally outside  his  special  physical  sphere,  had  to 
be  accejyted  as  more  or  less  his  actions  ;  or,  if  they 
had  by  neighbouring  poets  been  ascribed  to  another 
god,  as  performed  by  him  in  union  with  that  divine 
agent. 

Syncretism  and  Allelotheism. 

It  has  been  the  custom  to  ascribe  this  fusing  of 
different  deities,  or  this  substituting  of  one  deity  for 
another,  to  the  very  latest  period  of  Vedic  thought, 
and  to  speak  of  it  as  modern  Syncretism.  But  there 
is  nothing  to  prove  that  the  formation  of  these  com- 
pound names  of  deities  was  always  of  late  origin. 
Anyhow,  parallel  cases  occur  even  in  the  Avesta, 
and  they  have  a  recognised  position  in  the  Yedic 
ceremonial. 

This  so-called  Syncretism  seems  to  me  to  admit 
of  a  far  better  explanation,  if  we  try  to  understand 
it  as  the  natural  result  of  the  previous  stage  of 
Henotheism.  I  should  therefore  propose  to  call  it 
by  a  name  which  would  suffice  to  keep  it  distinct 
from  the  later  Syncretism,  and  would  not  commit 
us  to  any  far-reaching  theory,  namely,  Allelotheism. 
When  we  are  told  by  the  Vedic  poets  (Rv.  II,  1)  that 
Agni  is  Indra  and  Varuna,  and  Mitra,  we  must  not 
forget  that  the  same  poets  are  fond  of  saying  that  all 


n]  SYNCRETISM    AND    ALLELOTHEISM.  147 

the  gods  are  Agni.     This  means  that  Agni  having 
with  his  own  worshippers,  or  at  certain  sacrifices, 
become  the  one  god  on  whom  all  the  broad  features 
of  ancient  godhead  had  been  concentrated,  it  was 
but  natural  that  all  the  most  marvellous  workings  of 
nature  should  be  ascribed  to  him,  even  those  that 
seemed   very   distant    from    his    original    sphere    of 
action.     If  Agni  is  said  to  be  Mitra  or  Varima,  we 
must  remember  that  Agni  never  was  simply  ignis, 
the  fire,  or  the  fire  in  the  house.     He  was  light,  and 
wherever  light  and  warmth  were  present,  there  was 
Agni.     Thus  when  Agni  is  said  to  be  in  the  sun, 
this  was  not  a  later  transference,  but  it  was  true 
from  the  beginning.    Whatever  there  was  of  light 
and  warmth  in  the  sun  was  the  same  thing  as  the 
light  and  warmth  of  the  fire  in  the  house.     What 
else  could  it  be  to  a  primitive  worshipper?     Even 
the  bright  flash  of  lightning  would  at  once  be  recog- 
nised as   a  momentary  manifestation   of  the   same 
Agni.     Mitra,  as  a  matutinal  deity,  was  therefore 
readily  identified  with   Agni,   and   though    Agni's 
identification  with  Varuna,  as  a   nocturnal   deity, 
seems  more  difficult,  yet  we   must   remember   how 
often  the  dark  deities  are  conceived  as  the  prede- 
cessors, nay,  even  as  the  progenitors,  of  the  bright 
powers  of  the  morning,  so  that  even  in  the  darkness 
of  the  night,  as  in  Varuwa,  the  germs  of  the  coming 
light   might  be  said  to  lie   hidden.     Varuna  could 
even  be  identified  with  the  sun,  because  during  the 
night  also  the  agent  of  the  sun  was  felt  to  be  present, 
though  invisible  to  human  eyes. 

From  this  point  of  view  many  passages  in  the 
Veda  become  intelligible,  as  when  we  read  (V,  85,5) 
that  Varuwa  standing  in  the  sky  measured  or  made 

l  2 


148  SYNCRETISM    AND    ALLELOTHEISM.  [chap. 

the  earth  with  the  sun  as  with  a  measuring-rod, 
manena  iva  tasthivan  antarikshe  vi  yaA  mame 
prithivim  suryena. 

Anthropomorphic  Development. 

Another  important  feature,  which  shows  how  far 
the  Greek  gods  have  advanced  beyond  their  Vedic 
relatives,  is  the  pronounced  human  form  of  the 
Greek  gods.  They  are  not  only  superhuman  in  their 
strength,  but  they  are  at  the  same  time  the  very 
perfection  of  the  human  type  in  their  visible  appear- 
ance. Here  again  we  find  the  germs  only  in  the 
Veda,  far  removed  as  yet  from  the  perfection  of 
Greek  mythology.  We  meet  in  the  Veda  with 
descriptions  of  Ushas,  for  instance,  as  a  lovely 
maiden,  of  Agni  as  golden-bearded,  of  Indra  as 
distinguished  by  his  handsome  nose  and  shining 
helmet.  But  the  creation  of  a  Zeus  or  Athene  by 
Phidias,  of  a  Hermes  by  Praxiteles,  of  an  Artemis 
or  an  Aphrodite,  like  those  seen  in  the  Louvre,  was 
beyond  the  Vedic  horizon.  The  Greeks,  on  the 
contrary,  seem  to  have  reasoned  boldly  that  if  the 
gods  are  superhuman  in  power,  they  must  also  be 
superhuman  in  beauty;  and  yet  they  hardly  ever 
overstepped  the  limits  of  real  beauty,  they  never, 
or  hardly  ever,  sacrificed  reality  to  mere  symbol- 
ism, like  the  Hindus,  Egyptians,  and  South  Sea 
Islanders. 

That  besides  physical  beauty  the  gods  should 
also  be  endowed  with  all  ethical  excellences,  was 
no  doubt  a  postulate  of  the  Greek  mind,  but  its 
realisation  was  hampered  by  hereditary  influences, 
that  is,  by  the  physical  prototypes  from  which  the 
conceptions  of  nearly  all  the  Greek  gods  had  started, 


ii]  ANTHROPOMORPHIC    DEVELOPMENT.  1 49 

and  which  could  never  be  altogether  obliterated. 
The  Greeks  might  postulate  a  Zeus  as  '  the  greatest 
and  best,'  the  physical  antecedents  of  this  deity- 
were  such  that  they  always  dragged  him.  down  to 
a  lower  level.  It  was,  however,  this  postulate  of  a 
Zeus  /xeyio-ros  d/ncrro?,  whoever  he  might  be  (octtis 
ttot  icniv,  Aesch.  Agam.  v.  160),  which,  like  that  of 
Jehovah  in  the  minds  of  the  prophets,  led  in  time 
to  the  idea  of  the  one  God  above  all  gods,  and  in 
the  end  to  the  still  higher  idea  of  Oeos,  or  God. 

Can  this  a  priori  view  of  the  Evolution  of   Mythology- 
be  verified  ? 

The  process  which  has  been  described  so  far  may, 
no  doubt,  on  some  points  seem  mere  theory.  I  fully 
admit  that  it  is  an  a  priori  view  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  mythology,  or  of  what  is  now  called  the 
evolution  of  mythology,  and  indirectly  of  religion. 
The  great  question  then  that  remains  to  be  an- 
swered by  students  of  Comparative  Mythology  is, 
whether  this  a  priori  view  can  be  verified  by 
a  posteriori  facts,  taken  chiefly  from  Greek  and 
Vedic  mythology.  This  is  really  the  problem  to 
the  solution  of  which  my  own  researches  in  mytho- 
logy have  been  chiefly  directed.  Though  I  believe 
that  the  theory  of  mythology,  as  explained  above, 
has  found  more  general  favour  with  scholars  and 
philosophers  than  any  other,  yet  history  stands 
higher  than  any  theory,  and  it  is  by  historical  facts 
only,  by  an  examination  of  real  mythologies,  that 
it  can  be  either  confirmed  or  refuted. 

Definition  of  Mythology  not  Exhaustive. 
One  objection,  however,  may  be  raised  at  once, 
that  the  mythological  process  as  described   above 


150  MYTHOLOGY    NOT    EXHAUSTIVE.  [chap. 

does  not  exhaust  the  whole  of  mythology,  and  that 
there  are  some  gods  and  goddesses  for  which  it 
seems  impossible  to  claim  a  physical  origin. 

Ancestral  Spirits. 
There  is  the  belief  in  ancestral  spirits,  which  has 
been  traced  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  not  only 
among  uncivilised,  but  likewise  among  civilised 
races.  The  extraordinary  assertion  that  the  worship 
of  ancestral  spirits  was  unknown  in  the  ancient 
religion  of  India  has  not  been  repeated  of  late,  and 
may  therefore  be  supposed  to  have  been  silently 
surrendered  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  \  The  worship 
of  the  Pitns  (Fathers)  in  India 2,  like  that  of  the 
Ka  in  Egypt  and  of  the  Fravashis  in  Persia,  consti- 
tutes, on  the  contrary,  one  of  the  most  vital  portions 
of  the  religion  of  those  countries  from  the  earliest 
to  the  latest  times.  This  ancestor-worship,  however, 
may  be  far  better  treated  as  a  subject  by  itself.  It 
is  from  the  very  beginning  religious  rather  than 
mythological  in  its  character,  and  even  in  cases 
where  it  has  been  mixed  up  with  extraneous  super- 
stitions and  become  mythological,  it  should  be  left 
to  stand  by  itself,  and  not  be  made  a  part  of  ordinary 
mythology. 

Abstract  Deities. 

There  is  another  class  of  so-called  gods  and  god- 
desses which,  according  to  the  theory  of  mythology 

1  See  M.  M.,  Anthropological  Eeligion,  p.  142. 

2  If  more  evidence  was  wanted,  it  might  easily  be  found  in 
Mr.  J.  M.  Campbell's  recent  articles  on  Eeligion  (Ind.  Antiquary, 
Nov.,  1894,  p.  333).  He  shows  how  necessary  it  is  to  dis- 
tinguish between  different  kinds  of  spirit-worship,  for  while 
ancestor-worship  is  one  of  the  most  widely-spread  forms  of  faith 
among  high-class  Hindus,  demon-worship  is  actually  abhorred 
by  them. 


n]  ABSTRACT    DEITIES.  151 

explained  above,  would  stand  excluded,  I  mean  the 
abstract  deities,  such  as  Psyche,  soul,  Eros,  love, 
Eirene,  peace,  and  many  more.  In  the  folklore  of 
the  lower  classes  at  Rome  similar  beings  were  very 
numerous.  Some  of  them  are  classed  with  the 
Manes1,  such  as  Yitumnus,  he  who  gives  life  to 
children ;  Sentinus,  he  who  gives  them  their  senses  ; 
Vagitanus,  he  who  was  thanked  for  helping  children 
to  cry  ;  or  Cuba,  Cunina,  and  Rumina,  who  were 
supposed  to  help  children  to  lie  down,  to  sleep  in 
their  cots,  and  to  take  the  breast  -.  Even  in  the 
Veda  we  find  already  hymns  addressed  to  Va&, 
Speech,  £raddha,  Faith,  Lakshmi,  Happiness,  while 
in  the  Greek  pantheon  we  meet  with  Themis,  the 
old  goddess  of  justice,  with  Aisa  and  Moira,  fate, 
Hypnos,  sleep,  and  many  more. 

Epithet  Deities. 

Here,  however,  we  must  make  a  distinction.  Some 
of  these  so-called  abstract  deities  owe  their  origin 
to  what  were  originally  epithets  of  real  mytho- 
logical gods.  Thus  Dius  Fidius  as  well  as  Sancus 
was  originally  a  name  of  Jupiter,  but  assumed  in 
time  so  much  independence  that  its  very  relation 
to  Jupiter  was  forgotten.  Lucina  was  like  Lucetia 
and  Luceria  a  name  of  Juno,  but  she  became  a  new 

1  In  Egypt  also  we  have  such  gods  as  Maskhonit  who 
appeared  at  the  child's  cradle,  Raninit  who  presided  over  the 
naming  and  nurture  of  the  newly  born.  See  Maspero,  Dawn  of 
Civilisation,  p.  82. 

2  Hisce  Manibus  lacte  fiat,  non  vino,  Cuninae  propter  cunas, 
Ruminae  propter  rumam,  id  est  prisco  vocabulo  mammam, 
a  quo  subrumi  etiam  nunc  dicuntur  agni.  Varro  apud  Nonium, 
p.  167. 


152  EPITHET    DEITIES.  [chap. 

goddess  very  much  like  the  Greek  Eileithyia,  origin- 
ally, particularly  in  Argolis  and  Attica,  a  name  of 
Here,  though  frequently  invoked  as  an  independent 
goddess  assisting  at  the  birth  of  children.  Matuta 
also  was  at  first  a  name  of  Juno,  the  Mater  Matuta, 
and  Lucretius  (v,  655),  as  is  well  known,  uses  her 
name,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  as  a  name  of 
the  Dawn. 

Substantive  Deities. 

In  other  cases,  however,  a  new  abstract  deity 
seems  to  have  been  created  independently.  In 
Greek,  Themis,  Justice,  must  be  of  so  early  a  date 
that  Hesiod  was  able  to  represent  her  as  the  second 
wife  of  Zeus,  the  first  being  Metis,  or  wisdom,  not 
yet  Here.  She  is  referred  to  the  oldest  race  of 
the  gods,  as  the  daughter  of  Ouranos  and  Gaia. 
When  she  is  called  navSepKrjs,  or  all  seeing,  and  in 
later  times  the  daughter  of  Helios,  one  feels  inclined 
to  suspect  for  her  also  a  physical  substratum,  but 
there  is  no  definite  trace  of  this  left  either  in  Homer 
or  in  Hesiod.  On  the  whole,  I  think  that  Kuhn 
was  right  when  he  laid  it  down  as  a  general  rule 
that  it  is  very  risky1  to  ascribe  any  mythic  per- 
sonalities sprung  from  j^ure  abstraction  to  the  oldest 
period  of  mythology. 

Though  we  have  to  admit,  therefore,  that,  from 
a  purely  logical  point  of  view,  the  definition  of 
mythology,  as  explained  before,  is  deficient,  because 
it  excludes  all  non-physical  deities,  this  defect  is 
really  less  serious  than  it  would  seem  to  be.  How- 
ever ancient  the  Greek  Themis  may  be,  she  clearly 
belongs  to  a  different  stratum  from  that  which  gave 

1   Herabkunft  des  Feuers,  p.  17. 


n]  SUBSTANTIVE    DEITIES.  153 

rise  to  her  supposed  parents,  Ouranos  and  Gaia, 
Heaven  and  Earth,  to  Zeus,  Sky,  to  Helios,  Sun, 
Selene,  Moon,  Eos,  Dawn,  and  all  the  rest.  From 
a  psychological  point  of  view  she  always  remains  an 
abstraction,  not  an  intuition  ;  an  abstraction  which 
no  doubt  assumed  flesh  and  blood  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  Greek  poets,  possibly  by  being  grafted  on 
a  more  ancient  conception  which  is  lost  to  us ; 
but  she  can  never  claim  perfect  equality  with  the 
mythological  creations  of  the  earliest  Aryan  times. 
We  hold,  therefore,  though,  as  yet,  on  a  priori 
grounds  only,  that  the  earliest  objects  of 
mythological  thought  and  language  were 
the  most  prominent  phenomena  of  nature, 
the  sky,  the  sun,  morning  and  evening,  day  and 
night,  the  wind,  thunder  and  lightning,  the  moon, 
the  dawn,  some  of  the  stars,  the  rivers,  the  moun- 
tains, the  clouds,  the  rain,  the  earth,  the  fire,  the 
water,  and  in  some  cases  the  sea,  and  all  of  them 
conceived  not  as  inanimate  objects,  but  as  animate 
and  as  doing  something,  as  agents,  in  their  thoughts 
and  passions  like  human  agents,  but  in  other  re- 
spects as  superhuman,  immortal,  and  lastly  as 
divine1. 

Different  Interpretations.     Euhemerism. 

No  school  of  mythology,  however  sceptical  as  to 
the  physical  origin  of  the  principal  gods  and  heroes 
of  antiquity,  has  ever,  so  far  as  I  know,  suggested 
any  other  intelligible  origin,  I  mean  intelligible  on 
a  priori  grounds.     Nor  should  it  be  considered  of 

1  This  view  is  fully  accepted  by  Oldenberg,  Religion  des 
Veda,  pp.  48  seq.,  52  seq.,  591  seq.,  however  much  he  may 
seem  to  differ  from  Kuhn  and  myself  on  other  points. 


154     DIFFERENT  INTERPRETATIONS.    EUHEMERISM.     [chap. 

small  moment  that  in  the  case  of  the  two  most 
ancient  mythologies  and  religions  of  the  world,  that 
of  Egypt  and  Chaldaea,  the  most  competent  scholars 
have  arrived  at  exactly  the  same  conclusion. 
Maspero,  in  his  Dawn  of  Civilisation,  after  having 
shown  the  true  character  of  the  gods  of  Egypt 
(p.  85),  repeats,  when  summing  up  his  view  of  the 
gods  of  Chaldaea  (p.  639)  : — 

'  Whether  Sumerian  or  Semitic,  the  gods,  like  those 
of  Egypt,  were  not  abstract  personages,  guiding  in 
a  metaphysical  fashion  the  forces  of  nature.  Each 
of  them  contained  in  himself  one  of  the  principal 
elements  of  which  our  universe  is  composed, — earth, 
water,  sky,  sun,  moon,  and  the  stars  which  moved 
around  the  terrestrial  mountain.  The  succession  of 
natural  phenomena  with  them  was  not  the  result 
of  unalterable  laws  ;  it  was  due  entirely  to  a  series  of 
voluntary  acts,  accomplished  by  beings  of  different 
grades  of  intelligence  and  power.  Every  part  of 
the  great  whole  is  represented  by  a  god,  a  god  who 
is  a  man,  a  Chaldaean,'  &c. 

Surely  these  ancient  savages  of  Mesopotamia  and 
Egypt  have  as  much  right  to  be  consulted  as  the 
modern  savages  of  Patagonia  and  New  Guinea. 
But  quite  apart  from  all  facts,  if  certain  Euhe- 
merists,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  maintain  that 
the  gods  were  originally  human  beings,  endowed 
with  great  physical  or  intellectual  strength,  who 
had  been  raised  to  the  rank  of  deities,  do  they  not 
forget  that  what  has  to  be  explained  is  the  origin 
of  this  very  concept  of  divine  beings,  of  a  class  of 
bright  Devas  to  which  human  beings,  whether  living 
or  dead,  could  afterwards  have  been  assigned  ?  No 
one  surely  could  be  deified,  could  be  raised  to  the 
rank  of  Deva,  before  the  concept  of  Devas  had  been 


n]         DIFFERENT    INTERPRETATIONS.-    EUHEMERISM.      1 55 

fully  elaborated.  No  apotheosis  is  possible  unless 
there  is  the  concept  of  theos  ready  at  hand.  It  is 
curious  that  this  simple  fact  seems  never  to  have 
struck  our  modern  Euhemerists,  those  at  least  among 
them  who  possessed  some  knowledge  of  psychology. 
Or  if  others  imagine  that  mythology  can  easily  be 
explained  by  supposing  that  men  agreed  to  ascribe 
a  soul  to  the  sky,  or  the  hills,  or  the  trees  (Animism), 
do  they  not  forget  that  this  concept  of  soul  also  can 
only  be  the  result  of  a  long  process  of  thought,  and, 
when  once  clearly  elaborated,  would  be  the  very  last 
thing  which  men,  believing  in  a  soul,  would  ascribe 
to  wood  or  stone  or  vapour  ? 

Appeal  to  History. 
Still  our  last  appeal  must  always  be  to  history, 
and  to  history  we  now  must  go.  Of  course  of  many 
of  the  ancient  mythologies  or  religions  of  the  world 
we  know  nothing.  Many  have  sprung  up  and 
have  vanished,  of  others  we  have  vague  reports  only, 
while  the  number  of  those  which  have  left  us 
ancient  poems  or  sacred  books,  in  fact  any  materials 
to  study  the  historical  evolution  of  mythology,  is 
extremely  small. 

Solarism  everywhere. 
It  is  curious  to  observe  that  as  soon  as  the  study 
of  ancient  religions  and  mythologies  was  taken  up 
by  European  scholars,  and  long  before  the  rise  of 
Comparative  Mythology  or  Comparative  Theology, 
it  seems  to  have  been  taken  for  granted  that  sun- 
worship  had  been  the  earliest  and  most  widely  dif- 
fused form  of  pagan  religion.  This  conviction  could 
not  have  been  derived  from  the  study  of  the  Sacred 
Books    of  the  East,  most   of  which    have   become 


156  SOLARISM    EVERYWHERE.  [chap. 

accessible  and  more  or  less  intelligible  in  our  century 
only.  It  was  from  the  accounts  of  classical  writers, 
such  as  Herodotus  and  Plato,  and  in  later  times  from 
the  reports  sent  home  by  missionaries,  travellers,  and 
merchants,  such  as  Carpini,  Marco  Polo  (d.  1324), 
Sagard,  Dobrizhoffer  (d.  1791),  and  many  more,  that 
students  who  tried  to  gain  an  insight  into  the  origin 
of  mythology  and  religion  derived  their  conviction 
that  their  principal  source  was  solar,  sun  and  sky 
being  often  taken  as  one.  Herodotus  (i,  131),  when 
describing  the  religion  of  the  ancient  Persians,  had 
stated  that  they  worshipped  the  sky  as  Zeus,  and 
sacrificed  besides  to  the  Sun,  the  Moon,  the  Earth, 
Fire,  Water,  and  the  Winds.  We  know  from  their 
sacred  books  that  the  supreme  deity  of  the  Persians 
had  indeed  been  originally  a  representative  of  the 
sky  (the  Asura  Varuna  of  the  Veda,  the  Ahura 
mazdao  of  the  Avesta),  though  raised  high  above 
the  level  of  the  other  gods  of  nature,  by  his  early 
assumption  of  a  spiritual  and  ethical  character. 

Herodotus  (iv,  188)  had  likewise  to  serve  as  the 
authority  for  the  belief  that  the  Libyans  sacrificed 
to  the  Sun  and  Moon  only,  while  those  about  Tri- 
tonis  worshipped  chiefly  Athene,  and  after  her 
Triton  and  Poseidon.  The  last  sentence  probably 
refers  to  Greek  settlers  in  that  neighbourhood. 

Prodikos  of  Keos'  declared  that  the  ancients 
believed  sun  and  moon,  rivers,  springs,  and  all  that 
was  useful  to  life  to  be  gods.  Epicharmos  took  the 
same  view  and  expressed  his  conviction  that  the  gods 


YIp68iKos  6  Kdos  rfKiou  <pr/(Ti,  Kal   <rihr]vi]v  Kat  noTapovs  kcu  Kprjvas  Kal 
KaduXov  iruvra  tci  wCpt'S.oiivTa  t6v  fi'iov  rjfiaiv  oi  TraXatol  dtovs  evofj.icrav  (Sext. 

Emp.  adv.  Phys.  i,  10,  52). 


Il]  SOLARISM    EVERYWHERE.  157 

were  the  winds,  water,  the  earth,  the  sun,  fire  and 
the  stars 1.  Plato  in  the  Apologia  (26)  introduces 
Sokrates  as  professing  his  belief  in  the  godhead  of 
sun  and  moon.  In  the  Laws  (821)  he  calls  sun  and 
moon  the  great  gods,  though  in  the  Timaios  (40)  he 
refers  to  the  earth  as  the  first  and  oldest  of  the  gods 
in  the  interior  of  heaven.  The  most  important  pas- 
sage, however,  is  that  in  the  Kratylos  (397)  2,  where 
he  expresses  his  belief  that  the  aboriginal  Hellenes 
looked  upon  sun,  moon,  earth,  stars,  and  heaven  as 
their  gods,  and  adds  that  these  are  still  the  gods  of 
many  of  the  barbarians.  Who  his  barbarians  are, 
he  does  not  say,  but  the  name  of  Plato  was  quite 
sufficient  to  induce  scholars  during  the  middle  ages, 
and  even  after  the  revival  of  learning,  to  repeat  his 
statements,  and  to  declare  that  the  gods  believed 
in  by  the  ancients,  whether  Greeks  or  barbarians, 
had  been  sun  and  moon  and  the  principal  phe- 
nomena of  nature. 

This  belief  in  physical  and,  more  particularly, 
solar  gods  and  heroes  found  its  most  decided  ex- 
pression in  a  work  published  in  1686,  the  Coelum 
Poeticum  of  Scheffer,  in  which  it  is  laid  down  as 
a  recognised  fact  that 3  '  every  god  of  the  Gentiles 
is  simply  and  solely  the  sun,  conceived  according  to 
his  diverse  operations,  as  Jupiter  working  in  the 
air,  as  Neptune  in  the  water,  as  Pluto  in  the  lower 
world.'     We  see  therefore  that  solarism  or  a  belief 

'O    (xtv   yETTtxafip-os   tovs    Seoiis   ehai   Aeyei 
aiepovs,    I/Scop,    yrjv,    rjhioi',    Tvp,    darepas. 

2  See  above,  p.  74. 

8  Omnis  gentilium  deus  est  solus  sol,  pro  diversa  operatione 
sua  acceptus,  v.  g.  ut  in  aura  operans  est  Jupiter,  ut  in  aqua 
Neptunus,  ut  in  subterraneis  Pluto  et  sic  de  aliis. 


158  SOLARISM    EVERYWHERE.  [chap. 

in  the  solar  origin  of  the  gods  and  heroes  of  pagan 
religions  has  very  ancient  and  very  high  authority, 
and  that  it  was  certainly  not  discovered  by  the 
students  of  Comparative  Mythology  and  Theology, 
who,  on  the  contrary,  were  the  first  to  prove  it 
untenable. 

The  Mythology  of  Savage  Races. 

The  chief  objections  to  this  explanation  of  the 
heathen  pantheon  came  from  philosophers  who 
pointed  out  that  the  worship  of  the  sun  under  his 
various  names  required  already  a  considerable 
amount  of  abstract  thought,  and  could  not  there- 
fore be  looked  upon  as  the  first  step  in  religion 
and  mythology.  Fetishism,  as  found  in  West 
Africa,  and  totemism,  as  found  in  North  America, 
were  supposed  to  represent  a  ruder  and,  it  was 
concluded,  more  primitive  form  of  religious  and 
mythological  thought. 

This  view  prevailed  till  the  myths  and  customs  of 
savage  races  began  to  be  studied  in  good  earnest ; 
and  till  Bastholm  (1 740-1819) 1,  one  of  the  most 
learned  and  most  conscientious  ethnologists  of  the 
last  century,  protested  against  this  conclusion,  and, 
once  for  all,  appealed  to  facts  against  theory.  He 
pointed  out  that  the  Andaman  islanders,  who  were 
then  and  are  still  considered  as  the  lowest  of  the 
low,  and  therefore  the  nearest  to  rude  and  primitive 
mankind,  worshipped  nevertheless  sun,  moon,  spirits 
of  forests,  water,  mountains  and  storms. 

Classical  scholars,  however,  continued  the  most 
strenuous  opponents  of  the  Epicharmian  view  that 

1  Historische  Nachrichten  zur  Kenntniss  des  Menschen  in 
seinem  wilden  und  rohen  Zustande.  Aus  dem  Danischen 
ubersetzt  von  H.  E.  Wolf.      1818. 


Il]  THE    MYTHOLOGY    OF    SAVAGE    EACES.  159 

the  Greek  gods  were  no  more  than  the  sun,  the  stars, 
the  winds,  water,  and  the  earth.  They  might  accept 
Helios  as  the  sun  and  Selene  as  the  moon,  but  Zeus 
and  Athene,  they  said,  were  made  of  different  stuff 
altogether,  and  required  a  different  explanation. 
In  some  respects,  no  doubt,  they  were  perfectly 
right  ;  the  question  is  whether  Epicharmos  himself 
did  not  take  it  for  granted  that  every  Greek  was  able 
to  distinguish  between  the  purely  objective  ball  of 
the  sun,  and  the  agent  that  was  represented  by  it. 

Bastholm. 

Bastholm,  however,  maintained  his  position,  and 
this  position,  though  at  first  smiled  at,  proved 
stronger  than  it  was  expected.  Instead  of  attempting 
a  solution  of  the  question  of  the  origin  of  mythology, 
and  indirectly  of  religion  by  means  of  a  priori  argu- 
ments or  by  authority,  he  insisted  that  there  is  a 
large  amount  of  evidence,  besides  that  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  which  should  be  carefully  studied  before 
we  attempt  a  solution  of  this  problem.  Thus  while 
pointing  out  that  sun-worship  was  not  only  possible 
but  real  on  a  very  low  stage  of  civilisation,  such  as 
that  of  the  Andaman  islanders,  he  showed  at  the 
same  time  (1.  c,  p.  1 69  seq.)  that,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
would  be  premature  to  say  that  sun-worship  formed 
the  necessary  beginning  of  all  religion  and  all 
mythology.  From  the  accounts  of  travellers  which 
he  had  carefully  studied  he  was  able  to  prove  the 
existence  of  people  who  worship  the  moon  without 
worshipping  the  sun,  while  there  are  but  few,  he  adds, 
who  worship  the  sun  without  worshipping  the  moon. 

Thus  the  impulse  was  given  to  that  ethnological 
study  of  religion  and  mythology  which,  owing   to 


l6o  BASTHOLM.  [chap. 

the  rapid  increase  of  our  acquaintance  with  un- 
civilised races,  has  proved  so  useful  in  the  hands  of 
conscientious  students.  But  strange  to  say,  while 
our  modern  ethnologists  seem  so  opposed  to  the 
admission  of  solar  gods  and  solar  heroes,  nearly  all 
the  evidence  brought  together  from  the  most 
distant  parts  of  the  world  by  unprejudiced  mission- 
aries and  travellers  pointed  straight  in  the  opposite 
direction.  Marco  Polo,  when  speaking  of  the 
religion  of  the  Tatars  in  general  (ed.  Yule,  vol.  i, 
p.  248),  writes : — '  This  is  the  fashion  of  their 
religion.  They  say  there  is  a  Most  High  God  of 
Heaven :  whom  they  worship  daily  with  thurible 
and  incense,  but  they  pray  to  him  only  for  health 
of  mind  and  body.  But  there  is  also  another  god 
of  theirs  called  Natigai,  and  they  say  he  is  the  god 
of  the  Earth.'  When  speaking  of  the  Cathayans 
(whether  Chinese  or  Tatars)  he  says  (vol.  i,  p.  437)  : 
'  As  we  have  said  before,  these  people  are  idolaters, 
and  as  regards  their  gods,  each  has  a  tablet  fixed 
high  up  on  the  wall  on  which  is  inscribed  a  name 
which  represents  the  Most  High  and  Heavenly  God 
....  And  below  on  the  ground  is  a  figure  which  they 
call  Natigai,  which  is  the  god  of  things  terrestrial. 
To  him  they  give  a  wife  and  children  -.'  Piano 
Carpini's  account  of  the  Tatar  religion,  as  quoted 
by  Yule  (vol.  i,  p.  249),  is  much  the  same.  '  They 
believe  in  one  God,'  he  says,  '  the  Maker  of  all 
things  visible  and  invisible,  and  the  Distributer  of 
good  and  evil  in  the  world,  but  they  worship  him 

1  This  Supreme  Spirit  is  identified  by  Yule  with  the  Tengri 
of  the  Mongols,  also  called  Khormuzda,  a  word  traced  back  by 
Schmidt  to  the  Persian  Hormuzd  (Yule,  vol.  i,  p.  24Q,  note). 

2  See  also  Marco  Polo,  ed.  Yule,  vol.  ii,  p.  478. 


Il]  BASTHOLM.  l6f 

not  with  prayers  or  praises  or  any  kind  of  service. 
Natheless  they  have  certain  idols  of  felt,  imitating 
the  human  face.  These  they  place  on  either  side 
of  the  door,  and  believe  them  to  be  the  guardians  of 
the  flocks  from  whom  they  have  the  boons  of  milk 
and  increase  '.' 

Chinese  authorities  report  that  the  Hiongnu 
(Huns),  the  oldest  race  of  High  Asia,  worshipped 
the  sun,  the  moon,  the  spirit  of  the  sky,  the  earth, 
and  their  ancestors.  Menander  relates  that  the 
Tukius  (Turks)  showed  great  reverence  for  the  fire, 
the  air,  the  water,  the  earth,  but  that  they  wor- 
shipped besides  a  Supreme  God,  as  the  creator  of 
the  world,  and  sacrificed  camels,  oxen,  and  sheep 
to  him.  Castren 2  tells  us  that  the  Tuncmses  of 
the  present  day  turn  with  reverence  to  the  sun,  the 
moon,  the  stars,  the  earth,  the  fire,  and  the  spirits 
of  forests  and  mountains,  but  they  also  worship 
a  Supreme  Being  under  the  name  of  Buga  3.  The 
Samoyedes  have  a  very  similar  religion,  but  they 
call  their  Supreme  God  Num,  and  the  same  applies, 
according  to  Castren,  to  the  Fins  also  4. 

But  additions  to  our  knowledge  came  not  only 
from  travellers  and  missionaries  among  savage  and 

1  Col.  Yule  identifies  the  Natigai  with  the  Ongot,  the  supreme 
spirit  of  the  Tunguses.  The  Buriates  use  Nugait  or  Nogut  or 
Ongotui  (vol.  i,  p.  250).  Castren  suspected  some  connection 
with  the  Sk.  Natha  or  Niithaka,  lord.  Natha  is  not  only  a  name 
of  Buddha,  but  of  numerous  local  spirits  whom  the  Buddhists 
in  Burma  called  Nats.  See  J.  M.  Campbell,  Ind.  Antiq., 
Nov.,  1894,  p.  337. 

2  Cf.  Castren,  Ethnol.  Vorles.,  p.  64. 

3  Probably  the  Persian  Baga,  the  Russian  Bog',  god,  Sk, 
Bhaga,  one  of  the  Adityas. 

4  Castren,  Finnische  Mythologie,  p.  2  seq. 

VOL.   I.  M 


1 62  BASTHOLM.  [chap. 

therefore  supposed  to  be  primitive  races,  but  likewise 
from  the  decipherers  of  ancient  inscriptions  and 
explorers  of  ancient  literatures,  and  always  with  the 
same  result. 

Egypt  and  Babylon. 

As  soon  as  the  decipherers  of  the  hieroglyphic 
inscriptions  began  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  the 
Egyptian  religion,  it  became  clear  that  the  ancient 
settlers  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile  worshipped  gods 
representing  the  sky,  the  earth,  the  stars,  the  sun  ], 
the  Nile,  and  that  the  chief  object  of  their  worship 
was  solar.  Ra,  their  chief  deity,  was  a  name  of 
the  Sun.  Osiris,  the  son  of  Seb  (earth)  and  Nut 
(heaven)  is  again  the  sun,  Iris  is  the  dawn,  Horus  is 
the  child  of  Osiris  and  Iris, — all  solar  deities  2. 

The  same  applies  to  Babylon.  There  also  the 
decipherers  of  the  Babylonian  tablets  soon  discovered 
that  the  Sun-god  was  the  principal  deity.  It  has  been 
said  that  this  solar  religion  may  have  been  preceded 
there  by  something  like  Shamanism,  emanating  from 
the  primitive  Accadian  population.  It  certainly  may, 
but  it  should  always  be  remembered  that  Shamanism 
is  not  a  religion,  and  that  there  is  a  very  wide 
difference  between  the  religion  and  the  cult  of  such 
races  as  are  credited  with  Shamanism,  whether 
Siberians,  or  Bed  Indians,  or  Laps,  or  now  even 
Vedic  ifoshis.  Shamanism  also  demands  an  accurate 
definition  ;  otherwise  the  Pythian  priestess  will  soon 
be  classed  as  a  Shamaness. 

Baal,  the  supreme  deity  of  the  Semitic  inhabitants 

1  Maspero,  Dawn  of  Civilisation,  p.  85. 

2  Le  Page  Kenouf,  Hibbert  Lectures,  pp.  83-87,  110-112, 
and  particularly  the  excellent  work  of  L.  Oberziner,  II  Culto 
del  Sole  presso  gli  antichi  orientali,  1886. 


ii]  EGYPT    AND    BABYLON.  1 63 

of  the  Mesopotamian  kingdom,  was  clearly  a  Sun- 
god,  both  as  preserver  and  as  destroyer,  and  so  was 
his  female  counterpart,  the  goddess  of  fertility, 
under  her  various  names. 

But  though  the  documents  from  which  to  study 
the  growth  of  mythology  and  religion  are  much  richer 
and  have  been  far  more  critically  examined  in  the 
case  of  Egypt,  Chaldaea,  India,  and  Greece,  we  need 
not  be  afraid  that  our  a  priori  views  will  be  con- 
tradicted even  if  we  go  further  afield  and  examine 
the  more  or  less  trustworthy  accounts  of  the 
mythological  and  religious  folklore  of  savages 
par  excellence. 

Peru  and  Mexico. 

Soon    after    the    discovery   of    America   it   was 

discovered  that  the  religion  and  mythology  of  Peru 

were  solar  to  the  very  core,  that  Inti,  the  chief  god 

of  the  Incas,  was  the  sun,  and  Mama  Quillu  the  moon, 

while  other  phenomena  of  nature  received  each  their 

own  share  of  worship.     It  was  the  same  with  the 

inhabitants  of  Central  America  and  Mexico.     With 

them  also  the  worship  of  the  sun  was  predominant, 

though   mixed  with    that   of  the    moon  and  other 

physical  gods,  such  as  the  god  of  rain,  of  fire,  of  the 

winds,  &c. 

North  America. 

In  North  America  Sagard l  relates  that  the 
Shawnees,  when  questioned  about  their  belief  in 
divine  beings,  told  the  missionaries  that  they  con- 
sidered the  sun  as  the  Master  of  Life  and  the  Great 
Spirit,  because  it  animates  everything.  Dobrizhoffer 
in  his  charming  work  on  the  Abipones  (ii,  89)  states 

1  Histoire  du  Canada,  p.  490. 
M  2 


164  NORTH    AMERICA.  [chap. 

that  when  a  missionary  had  been  preaching  to  the 
Moluches  on  the  god  of  Christianity,  they  remarked 
'  that  till  this  hour  they  never  knew  nor  acknowledged 
anything  greater  or  better  than  the  sun.' 

Lastly  one  of  the  latest  authorities  on  the 
mythology  and  religion  of  the  savages  of  America, 
M.  G.  Raynaud,  in  Etudes  de  Critique  et  d'Histoire, 
2e  serie,  p.  376,  declares  in  so  many  words  : — '  On  a 
pu  dire,  et  cela  tres  exactement,  que  l'Amerique  tout 
entiere,  de  l'extreme  nord  a  l'extreme  sud,  des  tribus 
sauvages  aux  peuples  semi-civilises,  adora  le  soleil.' 
He  afterwards  explains  the  dualism  of  sun  and  moon. 

Many  more  testimonies  to  the  same  effect  might 
be  added  to  show  that  Solarism  had  been  in 
possession  of  the  field  long  before  the  discovery  of 
Vedic  literature,  and  that  its  chief  supporters  were 
the  ethnologists,  the  students  of  savage  races, 
and  not  the  much-abused  linguists  and  Vedic 
scholars.  On  the  contrary,  it  fell  to  the  students  of 
the  Veda  to  declare,  what  was  written  in  every  page 
of  the  ten  Mandalas  of  the  Rig-veda,  that  not  the 
sun  only,  but  every  part  of  nature,  had  contributed 
its  share  to  the  early  Aryan  pantheon.  They 
showed  most  clearly  and  by  evidence  that  could 
not  be  gainsaid  that  the  Vedic  Dyaus  (Zeus)  was 
not  the  sun,  as  such,  but  the  agent  of  the  sky  as 
illumined  and  enlivened  by  the  sun,  and  that  Surya, 
the  sun,  in  its  more  restricted  activity,  was  hardly 
more  prominent  in  the  Veda  than  Helios  in  Greek 
mythology,  while  it  assumed  its  dramatic  character 
chiefly  under  the  disguise  of  names  that  were  no 
longer  understood  by  the  ancients,  and,  like  the 
name  of  Apollon,  have  to  be  interpreted  before 
they  can  be  understood  again. 


n]  NORTH    AMERICA.  165 

In  this  limited  form  I  doubt  whether  Solarism, 
whether  applied  to  gods  or  heroes,  has  now  a  single 
serious  antagonist  even  among  ethnologists.  There 
was  a  time  when  the  very  existence  of  solar  and 
celestial  mythology  was  denied,  and  when,  as  usual 
in  the  absence  of  knowledge  and  argument,  it  was 
ridiculed  as  drawn  from  that  bank  with  unlimited 
liability,  the  inner  consciousness  of  German  pro- 
fessors. Times,  however,  have  changed,  and  I  doubt 
whether  even  the  most  determined  Euhemerists 
would  venture  any  longer  to  doubt  the  physical  origin 
of  Zeus  or  of  the  principal  members  of  his  Olympian 
family,  or  to  stand  up  for  Mr.  Sun  or  Miss  Dawn. 

And  was  it  really  so  very  strange  that  the  ancient 
mythology  should  have  turned  almost  exclusively 
round  the  sun,  and  that  the  folklore  of  the  ancient 
nations  of  the  world  should  consist  of  ever  so  many 
sayings  about  heaven  and  earth  ?  The  fact  can  no 
longer  be  denied,  the  only  question  that  remains  to 
be  answered  is  whether  it  was  really,  as  we  have 
been  so  often  told,  a  sign  of  primitive  folly  to 
talk  always  about  sun  and  moon,  day  and  night,  in 
fact,  about  heaven  and  earth. 

Egyptian  Mythology. 
The  Egyptians  are  not  considered  the  fools  of 
antiquity,  yet  their  whole  mythology  is  full  of 
stories,  stories  more  wild  than  the  wildest  of  Greek 
myths,  all  being  told  originally  of  the  sun  \  They 
tell  of  Horus  as  the  son  of  a  father  who  was  put  to 
death  by  his  brother,  but  furiously  avenged  by  his 
son,  who  after  defeating  his  adversaries  succeeds  to 
the  throne  of  his  father.     What  is  the  meaning  of 

1  Le  Page  Renouf,  Book  of  the  Dead  (p.  7). 


l66  EGYPTIAN    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

this  myth  ?  Horus  means  the  sun,  and  his  victory  is 
that  of  light  over  night  and  darkness  (Sut  and  his 
companions),  who  had  obtained  a  victory  over  Osiris, 
the  sun  of  the  preceding  day.  Day  and  night  are 
brothers,  and  children  of  the  sky. 

No  one  seems  now  to  doubt  that  in  Egyptian 
mythology  the  child  of  Seb  and  Nut,  heaven  and 
earth,  is  the  sun.  But  the  same  sun  may  also  be 
considered  as  either  the  parent  or  the  son  of  another 
sun.  Horus  therefore  is  called  the  son  either  of 
Osiris  or  of  Ra.  But  though  Ra  is  called  the  father 
of  Osiris,  the  two  are  also  identified.  Hence  arise 
numerous  contradictions  which  disappear  as  soon 
as  each  myth  is  understood  by  itself.  We  seem 
almost  to  be  listening  to  Polynesian  mythology 
when  we  read  how  in  Egyptian  mythology  Nut  and 
Seb  are  represented  as  fast  locked  in  slumber  in 
each  other's  arms  until  they  are  parted  by  Shu, 
who  raises  Nut  on  high  above  her  husband,  which 
signifies  in  Egypt  what  it  signifies  in  the  Polynesian 
islands,  namely,  that  heaven  and  earth  are  confused 
together  in  the  darkness  during  the  night,  and  that 
the  sunlight  parts  them  and  exhibits  heaven  high 
above  the  earth  \  In  Egyptian  the  sun  in  this 
character  is  actually  called  An-heru.  When  the 
Egyptians  saw  the  disk  of  the  sun  rise  up  at  the 
extremity  of  the  earth,  they  said  that  Seb,  the 
earth  (seb  also  signifies  goose),  had  laid  an  egg. 
The  very  goose  and  the  egg  laid  by  her  may  be 
seen  on  the  monuments  of  Egypt 2.  Even  the 
swallowing  and  vomiting  stories,  which  are  supposed 

1  Maspero,  Dawn  of  Civilisation,  p.  129. 

2  Lefebure,  '  L'OEuf  dans  la  Eeligion  Egyptienne, '  Revue  de 
l'Histoire  des  Religions,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  16-25. 


Il]  EGYPTIAN    MYTHOLOGY.  167 

to  be  proofs  of  a  primitive  Greek  barbarism  and 
cannibalism,  appear  in  Egyptian  mythology  without 
leaving  any  doubt  as  to  their  original  meaning. 
Anubis  swallows  his  own  father  Osiris,  i.  e.  the  sun 
has  disappeared  in  the  dark.  According  to  a  line 
in  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  Sut  devoured  the  head  of 
Osiris,  or,  according  to  another  account,  the  eye 
of  Horus.  And  here  what  happened  to  Kronos 
happened  to  Sut,  he  had  to  vomit  the  eye  which  he 
had  swallowed,  i.  e.  the  darkness  itself  is  compelled 
to  bring  up  the  light  of  the  sun. 

All  these  solar  ideas  which  seem  to  us  strange, 
and  sometimes  barbarous,  were  familiar  not  only 
to  the  Egyptians,  but  to  the  Greeks  likewise. 
Sophocles  (Trach.  94)  was  not  afraid  of  being  un- 
intelligible when  he  spoke  of  Helios,  the  sun,  bv 
aloXa  Nv£  ipapL^ofxeva  rt/cret  Kajrevvat^i  re  tykoyitp- 
[xevov,  '  whom  the  star-spangled  night  brings  forth, 
and  whom,  when  shining  brightly,  she  lulls  to  sleep.' 
Nay  we  find  common  sayings  about  day  and  night 
being  sisters,  one  bearing  the  other  and  being  born 
by  her1,  a  theme  which  lends  itself  either  to 
riddles,  or  to  ever  so  many  mythological  variations, 
one  more  terrible  than  the  other. 

Human  Feelings  with  regard  to  the  Panorama  of 
Nature. 
Our    great    difficulty    in    understanding    ancient 
mythology,  whether  of  civilised  or  uncivilised  races, 

1  Anthologia  Palatina,  xiv,  40  :  — 

Klcrt    KtitriyvrjTai    dv     dd(\<peai'    r;    fiia   tiktci 
tj]v   (TtprjVj    avri)    be    TtKovcr    dno   Tr/crSe   racvovraC 
wore   KacriyvrjTas    ovrras   apa   ko\   avvonainovs, 
avTOKaaiyvTjTas    Koivfi    Kril   fxi]repas   eivai. 

And  Ibid.  41  : — 

MtJ7«'/j'      (/J-ljV     TlKTOi     Kilt     TlKTOfXCU     K.T.X. 


l68  THE    PANORAMA    OF    NATURE.  [chap. 

is  always  that  we  are  supposed  to  be  unable  to 
feel  awed  or  surprised  at  what  happens  every  day, 
what  has  been  explained  to  us  thoroughly  from  our 
earliest  youth,  and  what  we  can  calculate  in  its 
constant  return  to  the  very  minute.  We  smile  at 
a  poet  who  has  no  more  to  say  than  that  the  sky 
is  bright,  and  the  dawn  beautiful  and  wonderful, 
and  yet  this  was  a  stage  of  poetry  through  which 
all  the  nations  of  the  world  had  to  pass.  It  is  all 
the  more  useful  if  we  can  find  a  few  persons  who 
are  not  afraid  to  say  once  more  what  has  often  been 
said  before,  and  I  therefore  quote  with  pleasure 
from  an  article  written  by  a  native  of  India  in  the 
Brahmavadin,  Dec.  21,  1895  : — 

'  At  the  very  dawn  of  history,'  he  writes,  '  when 
man  beheld  the  glorious  orb  of  the  day  shedding  an 
effulgent  stream  of  light  on  all  that  exists,  the  night 
studded  with  myriads  of  beautiful  stars,  the  crystal 
rills  rumbling  in  the  limitless  forests,  in  the  midst  of 
wild  scenery,  when  man  beheld  a  storm  spreading 
gloom  all  around,  how  a  gentle  gale  made  all  nature 
bloom,  he  very  naturally  became  meditative.  Amazed 
and  awe-struck  at  the  sight  of  these  phenomena  of 
the  natural  world,  he  put  to  himself  the  question — 
What  do  these  things  reveal  to  me  ?  What  is  the 
in  working  light  of  all  these  ?  To  the  so-called  un- 
civilised man  living  in  that  far-off  age  of  faith,  this 
panorama  presented  by  the  universe  revealed  the 
will  of  some  unknown  powers,  unknown  to  him,  and 
yet  guiding  him.' 

Here  we  see  still  some  of  that  spirit  which  in- 
spired the  earliest  dwellers  in  India  with  their 
religion.  These  thoughts  may  sound  to  us  very 
trite,  yet  they  are  true,  and  we  can  see  how  at 
first  they  could  assume  no  form  but  that  of  simple 
mythology.      Everything     that     appealed     to     the 


Il]  THE    PANORAMA    OF    NATURE.  169 

thoughts  of  man  was  contained  in  the  panorama  of 
nature,  and  though  the  storms,  the  clouds,  the  rain, 
the  rivers,  the  moon  and  the  stars,  would  naturally 
attract  some  attention,  nothing  could  stir  the 
heart  of  man  more  deeply  than  the  daily  return 
of  the  light,  the  revelation  of  the  whole  earth,  the 
daily  re-awakening  of  nature,  nay  of  man  himself, 
and  of  all  that  was  most  dear  to  him.  His  food, 
his  life,  his  happiness  and  the  happiness  of  his 
children,  all  depended  on  the  light  springing  up  in 
the  east,  driving  away  the  darkness,  the  chill,  the 
dangers  and  fears  of  the  night,  restoring  warmth 
and  vigour  to  his  bodily  frame,  new  will  to  his 
members,  new  thoughts  to  his  mind.  And  yet  we 
wonder  that  ancient  mythology  could  sometimes  be 
solar,  could  be  full  of  hopes  and  fears  about  the 
sun,  should  abound  with  names  all  referring  to  that 
luminary  in  its  various  manifestations,  should  con- 
tain the  first  germs  of  a  belief  in  invisible  powers 
behind  the  visible  workings  of  the  sun  when  passing 
over  the  earth  and  across  the  whole  sky.  If  men 
every  morning  enjoyed  their  breath,  their  sight, 
their  very  appetite  and  the  returning  warmth  of 
the  bodyj  was  it  so  very  strange  that  they  should 
have  looked  up  to  the  sun  as  the  giver  of  it  all  ? 
If  the  sun  was  hidden  by  clouds,  if  it  seemed  to 
give  no  warmth,  if  in  winter  their  limbs  were  numbed, 
if  their  children  and  cattle  were  dying  of  cold  and 
hunger  around  them,  or  if  a  sudden  flash  of  light 
from  the  cloud  set  fire  to  their  huts  and  destroyed 
in  a  moment  all  they  had  called  their  own — was  it 
so  very  strange  that  they  should  have  trembled 
and  implored  help  from  above,  calling  the  powers 
above  them  and  around  them  by  any  name  they 


17°  THE    PANORAMA    OF    NATURE.  [chap. 

could  think  of  or  remember  ?  And  when  all  was 
over  and  the  blue  sky  visible  once  more,  why  should 
they  not  have  greeted  it  with  rapture,  why  should 
they  not  have  spoken  of  their  miseries,  and  spoken 
in  words  of  praise  of  those  who  had  spared  or  who 
had  helped  them  1 

Southey  was  not  afraid  to  utter  these  natural 
feelings  about  the  sun  when  he  wrote  : — 

I  marvel  not,  O  Sun,  that  unto  thee 

In  adoration  man  should  bow  the  knee, 

And  pour  his  prayers  of  mingled  awe  and  love  ; 

For  like  a  God  thou  art,  and  on  thy  way 

Of  glory  sheddest  with  benignant  ray 

Beauty  and  life  and  joyance  from  above. 

No  longer  let  these  mists  thy  radiance  shroud — 

These  cold,  raw  mists  that  chill  the  comfortless  day  ; 

But  shed  thy  splendour  through  the  opening  cloud, 

And  cheer  the  earth  once  more.     The  languid  flowers 

Lie  odourless,  bent  down  with  heavy  rain  ; 

Earth  asks  thy  presence,  saturate  with  showers  ! 

O  lord  of  light !    put  forth  thy  beam  again, 

For  damp  and  cheerless  are  the  gloomy  hours1. 

So  much  for  the  poet.  But  we  want  the  man  of 
science  also  to  tell  us  the  new  poetry  of  the  sun,  as 
brought  to  light  by  the  latest  discoveries  which 
better  than  anything  else  bring  us  back  again  to 
the  old  conviction  of  our  absolute  dependence  on 
the  sun  which  the  sons  of  nature  had  not  yet  lost. 

Names  of  the  Sun. 
To  us  with  our  wealth  of  words  and  concepts  it 
is  easy  enough  to  speak  of  the  sun  as  having  life 
and  soul,  as  sharing  in  all  the  glories  both  of  man- 
hood and  of  godhead.     But  let    us  now  cast  our 


1  Southey,  Longman's  edition  of  1837,  vol.  i,  p.  96. 


n]  NAMES    OF    THE    SUN.  171 

eyes  back  on  those  distant  periods  when  every  new 
concept  had  to  be  conquered,  and  every  new  word 
had  to  be  coined — how  was  the  sun  to  be  grasped 
and  how  was  it  to  be  named  ?  If  our  view  of  the 
origin  of  language  and  thought  is  right,  if  the  neces- 
sity is  admitted,  of  conceiving  and  naming  every- 
thing that  is  to  be  conceived  and  named  by  roots 
which  express  acts,  then  the  sun  could  only  be  named 
as  he  who  shines,  as  he  who  warms,  or  nourishes,  or 
travels,  or  fights,  and  sets  or  dies.  As  to  ascribing 
to  that  shiner,  or  warmer,  or  nourisher,  or  traveller 
an  anima,  where  was  the  concept  and  name  of 
anima  itself  to  come  from  ?  The  first  step  of  the 
name-givers  was  not  yet  animism,  but  simply  sub- 
stantiation, or,  if  you  like,  the  use  of  the  nominative 
and  of  the  third  person  singular.  That  was  the 
first  theogony — everything  else  came  later.  Given 
a  root  that  meant  shining  (div  or  dyu)  and  Dyaus 
was  the  shiner,  deva,  he  who  shines.  Given  another 
root  meaning  to  light  (Sk.  vas,  us),  and  Us  has 
meant  he  or  she  who  lights  the  world,  a  word  living 
on  in  our  East  and  Easter  ;  vas-ar  was  the  morning 
and  the  spring,  preserved  in  Sk.  vasara,  day  (i.  e. 
morning),  in  Zap  and  ver,  the  spring.  Given  a  root 
su,  to  excite,  to  enliven,  and  SavhvW  meant  the 
enlivener,  which  became  one  of  the  best  known 
names  of  the  sun.  In  one  sense  SavitW  may  be  said 
to  be  the  sun,  but  he  possesses  an  independent  per- 
sonality among  the  numerous  names  of  the  sun. 
Surya,  Aryaman,  Aditya,  Vivasvat,  Pushan,  Mitra  l, 
all  are  the  same,  all  are  names  of  the  sun,  and  yet 
in  the  hymns  of  the  Veda  addressed  to  them  each 

1  Later    names    are    Kavi,    Divakara,    Bhaskara,    Saptasva, 
Mihira,  Taram,  Bradhna,  &c. 


I72  NAMES    OF    THE    SUN.  [chap. 

holds  his  own  place.  That  the  sun  and  the  sky  were 
intimately  connected  in  the  thoughts  of  the  Vedic 
poets  is  best  shown  by  such  names  as  svar,  gen.  suras, 
which  mean  both  sun  and  sky,  while  the  derivative 
surya,  coelestis,  means  the  sun  only,  is  in  fact  the 
Greek  17X105. 

Man's  Dependence  on  the  Sun. 
It  may  be  difficult  for  us  to  conceive  sky  and  sun 
as  one  1,  and  yet  even  to  us  the  sky  is  what  it  is  in 
its  active  character  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  by  the 
presence  of  the  sun.  We  have  but  one  name  for 
sun,  but  we  too  can  still  see  in  the  sun  more  than 
a  gaseous  ball  or  a  centre  of  gravity.  In  the  psalms 
we  still  address  the  Lord  God  as  a  sun  and  shield. 
Nay  in  spite  of  early  astronomical  instruction,  I  can 
still  remember  how  from  my  earliest  boyhood  I  have 
always  felt  my  dependence  on  the  sun.  Physio- 
logists now  tell  us  that  we  could  not  live  without 
the  sun,  that  even  our  mortal  life  depends  on  its 
rays.  Why  are  we  not  fat,  sleepy,  dull  Esquimaux, 
if  not  for  the  sun  ?  Do  we  not  feel  every  morning 
cheered  by  the  light  and  warmth  of  the  sun,  wide 
awake,  invigorated  in  body,  revived  in  mind  ?  And 
can  we  even  in  our  old  age  suppress  our  wonder- 
ment at  the  appearance  of  the  light  of  the  morning, 
at  the  vanishing  of  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun  ? 
We  know  the  laws,  we  can  calculate  the  path  of  the 
sun  to  a  minute,  and  yet  when  we  watch  its  birth 
from  the  waves  of  the  sea  (Anadyomene),  or  its  death 

1  The  confusion  of  Horns,   the  sky,  with  Ra,  the  sun,  has 

supplied  M.  Lefebure  with  the   subject   of  one  of  the   most 

interesting  chapters  in  his  Yeux  d'Horus,  p.  94.  See  Maspero, 
Dawn  of  Civilisation,  p.  100. 


n]  man's  dependence  on  the  sun.  173 

in  the  fiery  clouds  (Herakles  on  Oite),  do  we  not 
gaze  in  silence,  and  when  it  has  vanished  say  to 
ourselves,  All  is  right  (Wtam).  That  too  may  be  called 
Heliolatry,  but  those  who  can  understand  it  need 
not  despair  about  understanding  the  solar  deities 
and  solar  heroes  of  the  distant  past.  The  fool  may 
say  in  his  heart,  Why  did  the  ancient  Aryas  talk  of 
nothing  but  the  sun  ?  The  wise  man  will  say,  What 
else  could  they  have  thought  or  spoken  about,  and 
what  else  was  there  to  remember  and  to  tell  their 
children  and  grandchildren,  if  not  the  power  of  the 
sun,  the  labours  of  the  sun,  the  bounteous  gifts,  the 
pity  and  love  of  whoever  it  was  that  was  behind 
the  sun,  at  work  in  the  air  and  in  the  sky,  in  the 
earth,  nay  in  the  warmth  of  man's  own  heart.  If 
all  this  feeling  for  nature  is  childishness,  unworthy 
of  Vedic  ifoshis,  how  is  it  that  even  among  our  own 
poets  it  is  not  quite  extinct.  I  might  quote  ever 
so  many  extracts  I  have  collected,  eloquent  with 
a  passion  for  nature  and  a  poetical  reverence  for  the 
glorious  king  of  nature,  the  sun,  but  one  passage 
from  Charles  Kingsley  must  suffice  : — 

'  Is  it  merely  a  fancy,'  he  writes  in  one  of  his  Prose 
Idylls,  "  A  Charm  of  Birds,"  '  that  we  English,  the 
educated  people  among  us  at  least,  are  losing  that 
love  for  spring,  which  among  our  old  forefathers 
rose  almost  to  worship  ?  That  the  perpetual  miracle 
of  the  budding  leaves  and  the  returning  song-birds 
awakes  no  longer  in  us  the  astonishment  which  it 
awoke  yearly  among  the  dwellers  in  the  old  world, 
when  the  sun  was  a  god  who  was  sick  to  death  each 
winter,  and  returned  in  spring  to  life  and  health 
and  glory ;  when  the  death  of  Adonis,  at  the 
autumnal  equinox,  was  wept  over  by  the  Syrian 
women,  and  the  death  of  Baldur,  in  the  colder  north, 


174  MANS    DEPENDENCE    ON    THE    SUN.  [chap. 

by  all  living-  things,  even  to  the  dripping  trees,  and 
the  rocks  furrowed  by  the  autumn  rains ;  when 
Freya,  the  goddess  of  youth  and  love,  went  forth 
over  the  earth  each  spring,  while  the  flowers  broke 
up  under  her  tread  over  the  brown  moors,  and  the 
birds  welcomed  her  with  song  ;  when,  according  to 
Olaus  Magnus,  the  Goths  and  Southern  Swedes 
had,  on  the  return  of  spring,  a  mock  battle  between 
summer  and  winter,  and  welcomed  the  returning 
splendour  of  the  sun  with  dancing  and  mutual 
feasting,  rejoicing  that  a  better  season  for  fishing 
and  hunting  was  approaching.  To  those  simple 
children  of  a  simpler  age,  in  more  direct  contact 
with  the  daily  and  yearly  facts  of  nature,  and  more 
dependent  on  them  for  their  bodily  food  and  life, 
winter  and  spring  were  the  two  great  facts  of 
existence ;  the  symbols,  the  one  of  death,  the 
other  of  life,  and  the  battle  between  the  two,  the 
battle  of  the  sun  with  darkness,  of  winter  with 
spring,  of  death  with  life,  of  bereavement  with 
love,  lay  at  the  root  of  all  their  myths  and  all  their 
creeds.' 

Here  we  have  the  English  poet  who  would  find 
no  difficulty  in  understanding  the  poets  of  the  Veda, 
or  the  still  older  poets  of  Aryan  mythology.  Here 
we  have  the  true  worshipper  of  the  sun  who  would 
not  scorn  the  solar  poetry  of  old,  but  cherish  it  and 
recognise  in  it  the  first  higher  aspirations  of  man, 
the  first  suspicions  of  powers  invisible  behind  the 
daily  revelation  in  the  sky,  behind  the  never-ending 
drama  of  spring  and  winter. 

Savages. 

Some  of  these  thoughts  evoked  in  man  by  the 
aspect  of  nature  can  be  discovered  even  among 
the  so-called  savage  races  of  the  world.  But  we 
must    not    imagine    that    because   they   go    naked 


n]  SAVAGES.  175 

they  are  the  same  as  the  ancient  Aryas.  What 
there  is  now  left  of  savages  consists  to  a  great 
extent  of  decadent  races  defeated  in  the  universal 
struggle  for  life,  driven  back  by  more  vigorous 
conquerors  to  the  very  edge  of  the  inhabitable 
world,  or  taking  refuge  in  deserts  where  there 
was  no  competition,  no  rivalry,  no  war  or  dis- 
cord. They  have  become  stunted  intellectually  and 
often  physically  also.  Whoever  knows  Darwin's 
Origin  of  Species  knows  that  the  savages  of  the 
present  day  have  lived  on  earth  for  as  many 
generations  as  the  present  Aryas  of  India  and 
Europe,  and  if  they  have  remained  on  so  low  a 
level,  what  evidence  is  there  that  they  ever  had 
reached  so  high  a  level  even  as  the  Aryas  of  the 
Seven  Rivers  ?  There  are  exceptions,  but  many 
of  these  savages  from  whom  we  are  to  learn  how 
to  solve  the  riddles  left  us  in  the  mythology  and 
the  superstitions  of  the  ancient  Indo-European 
conquerors  of  the  world,  seem  to  me  like  dwarfs 
in  whom  human  nature  became  degraded  at  a  very 
early  time,  and  who,  even  if  of  late  they  have  re- 
covered, wrill  never  tell  us  what  were  the  aspirations 
of  the  giant  ancestors  of  our  own  race.  One  thing 
they  may  possess  that  is  really  genuine  and  old, 
their  language — but  that  is  the  very  thing  which  we 
are  told  we  need  not  study  in  order  to  understand 
the  modern  savage. 

Necessity  of  accounting  for  Mythology. 

The  object  of  all  scientific  research  is  to  discover 
causes,  and  the  question  that  students  of  mythology 
have  to  answer  is,  granting  the  physical  origin  of 
the  gods  and  goddesses  of  Aryan   mythology,  how 


176  ACCOUNTING    FOR    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

can  we  discover  the  original  character  of  each,  how 
can  we  understand  the  Hyponoia,  the  underlying 
thought  of  the  fables  told  of  them,  how  can  we 
reach  the  rational  foundation  which  is  covered  by 
such  an  immense  accumulation  of  what  seems  utterly 
irrational  ?  This  is  a  question  of  far  greater  im- 
portance than  at  first  sight  it  may  seem.  Suppose 
that  in  geology  we  should  find  the  regular  stratifi- 
cation of  the  earth  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  thick 
layer  of  altogether  heterogeneous  growth  ;  would 
geologists  rest  till  they  had  accounted  for  it  ?  Sup- 
pose that  in  the  development  of  living  organisms 
Darwin  had  suddenly  been  confronted  with  birds 
antecedent  to  reptiles,  with  horses  coming  before 
the  hipparion,  with  man  prior  to  the  amoeba,  or 
with  a  period  of  inexplicable  monstrosities,  would 
he  or  those  who  follow  him  have  been  satisfied  till 
this  complete  upsetting  of  their  scientific  theory, 
nay  of  their  scientific  faith,  had  been  accounted  for  ? 
And  is  not  the  regular  development  of  the  human 
mind  a  matter  of  far  greater  moment  to  us  than 
that  of  the  whole  of  nature  'I  Mythology  must  be 
accounted  for,  or  the  historical  development  of  man 
becomes  a  mere  farce  unworthy  of  the  labours  of 
scholars,  and  unfit  for  the  speculations  of  philo- 
sophers. 

I  have  always  tried *  to  impress  upon  students  of 
mythology,  that  we  must  distinguish  between  three 
methods  or  schools  in  the  interpretation  of  Vedic  or 
any  other  myths.  Each  in  its  own  sphere  has  done 
and  may  continue  to  do  some  real  good,  but  they 
should  not  be  mixed  up  together. 

1  Anthropological  Religion,  p.  426. 


u]  SCHOOLS    OF    COMPARATIVE    MYTHOLOGY.  1 77 

The  Three  Schools  of  Comparative  Mythology. 

There  is  (i)  The  Etymological  or  Genealogical 
school,  (2)  the  Analogical,  (3)  the  Psychological,  or, 
as  it  has  been  called,  the  Ethno-psychological. 

The  first  school  tries  to  show  that  there  are 
among  cognate  races,  whether  Aryan,  Semitic, 
Ugrian  or  Polynesian,  certain  myths  which  had 
a  common  origin,  and  which  existed  before  the 
separation  of  the  various  branches  of  these  different 
families  of  speech,  and  that  this  common  origin  can 
be  proved  by  the  presence  of  certain  proper  names 
of  gods  or  heroes,  some  of  which,  if  tested  etymo- 
logically,  yield  their  original  meaning  and  disclose 
to  us  the  true  intentions  of  their  original  framers. 
The  best  known  instance  is  Zeus  nar-qp,  Ju-piter, 
as  compared  with  Sk.  Dyaush-pitar,  i.  e.  the  bright 
sky  as  father. 

The  second  school  is  satisfied  with  pointing  out 
certain  similarities  in  the  character  and  fates  of 
gods  and  heroes,  even  though  their  names  are 
different.  Thus  when  we  are  told  that  Chione 
depreciated  the  beauty  of  Artemis,  and  was  shot 
by  the  goddess,  we  may  find  some  analogy  in 
the  case  of  Niobe  who,  for  exalting  herself  above 
Leto,  was  punished  by  Leto's  children,  Artemis 
and  Apollon,  and  deprived  of  all  her  offspring. 
This  would  be  a  case  of  pure  analogy,  and  it  is 
Sir  George  Cox's  merit  to  have  collected  a  large 
number  of  such  cases  in  Greek  mythology.  These 
analogies  are  most  important  if  they  occur  in  the 
mythologies  of  cognate  languages.  Nothing  is 
more  natural  than  that  it  should  be  so.  We  have 
only  to    remember    how   polyonymous    the    ancient 

vol.  I.  N 


178  SCHOOLS    OF    COMPARATIVE    MYTHOLOGY,      [chap. 

deities  were,  and  bow  often  one  of  their  names 
became  in  time  an  independent  deity  or  hero,  in 
order  to  understand  that  the  same  myth  with  slight 
variations  may  be  told  of  Indra  and  Purandara, 
of  Artemis  and  Selene,  of  Chione  and  Niobe.  The 
material  facts  of  the  story  would  by  themselves 
be  of  value  in  throwing  light  on  the  origin  of 
such  double  myths,  though  no  doubt  if  it  were 
possible  to  prove  that  not  only  Chione,  but  Niobe 
also,  who  is  sometimes  called  the  mother  of  Chione, 
was  an  old  Aryan  name  for  snow  or  winter,  our  case 
would  gain  considerable  strength  and  would  then 
come  under  the  first  class. 

While  these  two  modes  of  treatment  are  guided  by 
well-established  principles,  the  Ethno-psychological 
(Volkerpsychologisch)  method  is  still  in  its  purely 
tentative  stage,  and  dependent  chiefly  on  taste  and 
judgment.  In  comparing  the  myths  of  people  genealo- 
gically and  linguistically  unconnected,  and  chiefly  of 
tribes  on  the  lower  and  lowest  stages  of  civilised 
life,  comparative  mythologists  may  be  quite  justified 
in  seeing  in  certain  coincidences  the  result  of  psycho- 
logical tendencies  ingrained  in  human  nature,  and 
therefore  common  to  all  mankind,  unless  they  think 
a  personal  contact  in  very  remote  ages  not  quite 
impossible.  The  three  schools  start  all  with  the 
conviction  that  mythology  requires  interpretation. 
They  only  differ  in  their  methods,  that  is,  they  follow 
different  ways  in  order  to  discover  the  Hyponoia  of 
ancient  myths  and  customs. 

The  Genealogical  or  Linguistic  School. 

The  Genealogical  or  Linguistic  school  starts  from 
a  fact  which  is  hardly  contested   any  longer,  that 


n]  GENEALOGICAL    OR    LINGUISTIC    SCHOOL.  1 79 

the  Greeks  and  Romans,  whose  mythology  has 
long  formed  the  chief  subject  of  interest  to  classi- 
cal scholars,  were  closely  connected  by  language 
with  the  other  members  of  the  Aryan  family, 
Indians,  Persians,  Celts,  Teutons,  Slaves ;  and 
that,  as  these  Aryan  nations  share  the  large  bulk 
of  their  words  in  common,  some  of  them  con- 
nected with  myths  and  customs,  it  is  not  at  all 
unlikely  that  a  study  of  their  languages  might  prove 
useful  for  discovering  the  Hyponoia  of  Greek  and 
Roman,  nay  of  all  Aryan  myths.  Of  course  we  may 
be  mistaken  in  that  hope.  As  there  are  many 
words  in  Greek  formed  after  the  Aryan  Separation, 
many,  or  even  all,  of  the  Greek  myths  which  we  know 
may  have  been  formed  in  quite  recent  times,  when 
all  recollections  of  the  talk  of  the  common  Aryan  home 
had  long  faded  away.  Still  if  comparative  scholars 
should  bring  to  light  from  the  Veda  a  word  such  as 
deva,  corresponding  to  Lat.  deus,  meaning  bright, 
and  being  used  as  a  general  name  of  the  gods  of  the 
ancient  Aryan  mythology,  that  would  seem  to  be  as 
welcome  a  find  as  the  most  perfect  Sicilian  coin 
or  Phenician  sarcophagus.  If  then  one  of  these 
Devas  was  called  Dyu  in  the  Veda,  this  Dyu  being 
identically  the  same  word  as  the  Greek  Zevs,  Aio's, 
and  if  this  Dyu,  meaning  sky  in  the  Veda,  occurred 
there  in  a  compound  such  as  Dyaush-pitar,  instead 
of  DyauA  pitar,  corresponding  to  a  similar  compound 
name  in  Latin,  viz.  Jupiter,  Jovis,  the  Greek  Zevq 
TraTTjp,  no  one  could  well  resist  the  conviction  that 
there  was  a  real  historical  connection  between  the 
ancestors  of  Hindus,  Greeks,  and  Romans  when  they 
formed  these  words  and  compounds,  the  fertile 
germs  of  mythological  thought,  and  this  at  a  time 

N  2 


l8o  GENEALOGICAL    OK    LINGUISTIC    SCHOOL.       [chap. 

previous  to  the  Aryan  Separation.  We  may  go 
a  step  further,  and  prove  from  such  equations  as 
Sk.  data'  vasimam,  Zend  data  vohunam,  Greek  Scorrjp 
idojv,  giver  of  good  gifts,  applied  to  the  Devas, 
that  such  whole  phrases  even  had  been  formed  by 
the  Aryas  in  their  undivided  state,  and  had  been 
preserved  as  historical  heirlooms  from  generation  to 
generation. 

This  is  the  work  which  the  Genealogical  or 
Linguistic  School  undertakes  to  do,  and  whatever 
may  be  said  of  some  of  their  equations,  I  know  of  no 
one  who  would  condemn  their  method.  If  some 
critics  look  incredulous  at  such  equations  as 
vasunam  and  idcov,  I  am  afraid  we  cannot  help  their 
unbelief.  Here,  also,  if  people  wish  to  live,  they 
must  learn,  and  not  pride  themselves  on  what  they 
call  their  '  gigantic  ignorance.' 

The  Analogical  School. 
The  Analogical  School  keeps  likewise  within  the 
sphere  of  cognate  languages,  but  in  comparing  their 
myths  it  does  not  insist  on  the  identity  of  names. 
Wherever,  for  instance,  they  find  stories  about 
children  whose  father  was  a  god  and  whose  mother 
was  a  princess,  children  who  were  deserted  by  their 
mother,  suckled  by  animals,  brought  up  by 
shepherds,  and  at  last  recognised  as  rightful  heirs, 
often  taking  vengeance  on  their  unnatural  perse- 
cutors, they  would  naturally  admit  a  common  source 
and  a  common  meaning,  whether  these  children  are 
called  Komulus  and  Remus,  Perseus,  Theseus,  Cyrus, 
Kama  or  Siegfried.  Why  should  these  researches 
be  discouraged  or  disapproved  of?  There  is,  no 
doubt,  a  difference  between  gods  and  heroes  of  the 


n]  THE    ANALOGICAL    SCHOOL.  l8l 

same  name  and  gods  and  heroes  of  the  same 
character  only.  But  the  work  done  by  this  school, 
and  particularly  by  scholars  such  as  J.  G.  von  Hahn, 
Sir  George  Cox,  and  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  has  proved 
most  valuable,  if  only  as  preliminary  to  further 
research  and  linguistic  analysis.  In  some  cases 
their  comparisons  have  extended  beyond  the  limits 
of  cognate  languages.  If  the  results  obtained  by 
the  Genealogical  School  have  mostly  been  liable  to 
linguistic  criticism,  those  of  the  Analogical  School 
have  chiefly  been  criticised  on  the  ground  of  in- 
sufficient evidence,  and  of  a  tendency  to  ignore 
characteristic  differences  while  laying  too  much 
stress  on  coincidences  sometimes  more  apparent 
than  real. 

The  Ethnological  School. 

The  Ethnological  School  boldly  extends  its 
horizon  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  nations  speak- 
ing cognate  languages.  Any  coincidences  between 
the  myths  and  customs  of  the  most  civilised  and 
most  uncivilised  tribes  are  welcome,  nay  the  greater 
the  distance  that  separates  the  tribes  the  more 
important  the  mythological  coincidences  seem  to 
become.  And  rightly  so,  for,  if  historical  contact 
between  them  is  out  of  the  question,  their  agreement 
assumes  naturally  a  psychological  interest,  because 
it  can  only  be  accounted  for  as  arising  from  our  com- 
mon human  nature,  as  rational  in  their  irrationality, 
and  as  postulating  a  Hyponoia,  even  where  that 
underlying  reason  cannot  yet  be  discovered.  Why 
should  there  be  hostility  between  this  and  the  other 
two  schools  ?  Is  not  the  third  school  in  reality  a 
mere  extension  of  the  second,  as  the  second  was  of 


182  THE    ETHNOLOGICAL    SCHOOL.  [chap. 

the  first  ?     Are  not  its  comparisons  both  suggestive 
and  amusing,  even  if  they  are  not  always  quite  con- 
vincing ?     The  criticism  to  which  the   followers  of 
this  school  have  exposed  themselves,  is  much  the 
same   as   that   which    has   been   addressed    to   the 
defenders  of  the  Analogical  School,  only  in  a  much 
higher  degree.     It  has  been  shown  that  they  have 
often  relied    on    unreliable  evidence,  that  many  of 
them  have  not  even  felt  bound  to   learn   the  lan- 
guages from  which  they  have  quoted,  and  that  in 
consequence  they  have  not  been  able  to  distinguish 
between  what  really  is  and  what  only  seems  to  be 
identical  in  the  superstitious  customs  and  beliefs  of 
Greeks  and  Eomans,  on  one  side,  and  the  Khoi-Khoi 
or    the    Athapascans    on    the    other.     The    excuse 
which  formerly  existed,  that  these  languages  could 
be  studied  on  the  spot  only  and  at  the  risk  of  one's 
life,  holds  good  no  longer,  when  we  have  grammars 
and  even  texts  of  most  of  the  races  that  inhabit  the 
earth.    And  yet  the  same  writers  who  despise  the  help 
of  philology  for  the  study  of  the  customs  and  beliefs 
of  savage   tribes    do    not    hesitate   to  criticise  the 
results    obtained   by   the    patient    study  of  Greek 
and  Sanskrit  students,  though  ignorant  themselves 
of  these   classical   languages,    and   why  ? — Because 
classical  scholars  are  not  infallible.     And  what  can 
be  the  meaning  of  saying  A  must  be  wrong,  because 
B  differs  from  him  ?     Is  this  any  more  than  saying 
that  B  must  be  wrong,  because  A  differs  from  him  ? 
Here  surely  all  depends  on  C  who  can  adjudicate 
between  A  and  B. 

But  why  then  should  not  the  followers  of  these 
three  schools  work  in  harmony  ?  They  have  the  same 
end  in  view,  to  rationalise  what  seems  irrational  in  the 


n]  THE    ETHNOLOGICAL    SCHOOL.  1 83 

ancient  beliefs  and  customs  of  the  world.  Let  the 
members  of  each  do  their  work  conscientiously, 
seriously,  and  in  a  scholarlike  spirit,  and  whatever 
of  solid  gold  they  can  bring  to  light  from  their 
different  shafts  will  be  most  welcome.  That 
classical  scholars  should  appeal  first  to  the  my- 
thology of  races  whose  languages  they  understand 
and  who  are  known  to  be  linguistically  cognate,  is 
but  natural,  that  they  should  feel  inclined  to  sift 
the  enormous  evidence  collected  by  the  numerous 
followers  of  the  Analogical  School,  is  natural  also, 
and  that  they  should  hesitate  to  give  more  than 
a  provisional  assent  to  the  statements  made  by  the 
followers  of  the  Ethnological  School,  particularly  by 
those  who  quote  at  second  or  at  third  hand  only,  is 
the  most  natural  of  all.  I  speak  as  one  who  has  chiefly 
worked  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  Genealogical 
or  Lincnustic  School,  but  I  have  never  shared  the 
prejudices  of  that  school.  It  is  but  too  well  known 
that  there  was  a  time  when,  in  spite  of  ridicule,  I  ven- 
tured to  descend  myself  into  the  shafts  opened  by  the 
second  and  the  third  schools,  and  to  point  out  what 
seemed  to  me  at  that  time  promising  fields  of  labour. 
I  acquired  an  elementary  knowledge  of  some  of  the 
non- Aryan  languages,  for  instance  the  Mohawk,  and 
I  always  took  the  precaution  to  submit  my  tentative 
work  to  my  friends,  such  as  Bishop  Callaway,  the 
Rev.  W.  W.  Gill,  or  Dr.  Hahn,  who  are  rightly 
considered  the  highest  authorities,  each  in  his  own 
sphere  of  work.  And  yet  I  know  but  too  well 
that  I  blundered,  just  as  the  best  scholars  have 
occasionally  blundered,  even  in  Homer  and  the 
Veda.  Was  it  not  natural  therefore  that  I  should 
have  warned  others  against  the  pitfalls  of  ethno- 


184  THE    ETHNOLOGICAL    SCHOOL.  [chap. 

logical  evidence,  as  soon  as  it  goes  beyond  skulls 
and  hair,  and  undertakes  to  lay  bare  before  our  eyes 
the  secret  springs  of  religious  convictions  or  as- 
tounding superstitions.  What  has  seemed  to  me 
and  to  many  really  surprising  is  that  the  followers 
of  the  Ethnological  School,  who  are  not,  like  Siegfried, 
vulnerable  in  one  spot  only,  should  have  felt  called 
upon  to  pose  as  judges  on  scholars  who,  whatever 
their  failings  may  be,  know  at  all  events  something 
of  Greek  and  Latin  and  Sanskrit  and  Zend,  more 
perhaps  than  what  they  themselves  profess  to  know 
of  Maori  or  Mohawk.  What  can  be  the  object  of 
that  so-called  'journalistic  mist '  of  which  the  better 
members  of  the  Ethnological  School  have  themselves 
complained,  and  which,  like  the  dust  kicked  up  by 
children  on  the  road,  is  sure  to  fall  back  on  those  who 
raise  it  ?  And  lastly,  what  can  be  the  object  of  the 
repeated  attempts  to  represent  me  as  the  only 
champion  of  the  Linguistic  School,  and  as  the 
sworn  adversary  of  the  Ethnological  School,  when 
in  the  same  breath  the  writer  complains  that  I  have 
never  even  mentioned  his  name  !  This  is  not  the  right 
temper  of  a  true  scholar.  There  is  ample  room  for 
all  of  us.  Very  often  it  is  not  a  question  of  aut- 
aut  between  the  three  schools,  but  rather,  as  far  as 
I  can  judge,  of  et-et.  Whatever  the  ethnologists 
bring  us,  if  only  it  is  dependable,  is  sure  to  be  useful. 
Prof.  Oldenberg  has  shown  that  he  does  not  despise 
help  from  any  quarter,  though  he  has  never  wavered 
in  his  allegiance  to  the  Genealogical  School.  The 
late  Dr.  Mannhardt,  though  he  did  not  venture 
much  among  black  or  red  skins,  has  shown  how 
much  may  be  done  by  discovering  analogies  between 
the  living  customs  and  local  traditions  of  German  and 


n]  THE  ETHNOLOGICAL  SCHOOL.  185 

Slavonic  peasants  on  one  side,  and  mythological 
incidents  of  the  highest  antiquity  on  the  other. 
The  best  representatives  of  the  three  schools  have 
been  working  with  perfect  harmony  and  mutual 
advantage  so  long  as  they  recognised  the  condition 
incumbent  on  all,  a  critical  study  of  the  languages 
from  which  mythological  expressions  arose,  and,  if 
possible,  a  reference  to  the  original  authorities  from 
which  their  statements  are  taken. 

Whatever  difference  there  may  be  as  to  the  best 
methods  to  be  followed  in  the  study  of  ancient 
myths  and  customs,  one  would  have  thought  there 
could  be  none  as  to  the  laws  of  logic  to  be  followed 
in  forming  judgments  on  the  evidence  placed  before 
us.  It  is  well  known  that  a  kind  of  mosaic  picture 
of  what  Aryan  civilisation  must  have  been  before 
the  Aryan  Separation  has  been  put  together  from 
words  and  concepts  shared  in  common  by  the  two 
principal  branches  of  the  Aryan  family.  We  are 
now  told  that  all  this  is  an  illusion,  and  why  ?  Be- 
cause some  of  these  words  and  concepts  occur  in 
the  languages  of  savage  races  also.  Where  is  the 
sequitur  ?  Is  the  decimal  system  of  numeration 
less  part  of  early  Aryan  civilisation  because  we  find 
the  same  among  savage  races  also  ?  No  one,  so  far  as 
I  know,  has  ever  maintained  that  before  the  Aryan 
Separation  the  Aryas  cultivated  their  memory  to 
an  extraordinary  extent '.  That  applies  in  reality 
to  a  much  later  and  purely  Indian  period.  It 
applies  even  to  the  /SVotriyas  of  the  present  day. 
But  suppose  it  had  been  mentioned  as  a  charac- 
teristic  of  the   Pan-Aryan   period,  what   difference 


1  Hopkins,  Religions  of  India,  p.  161. 


1 86  THE    ETHNOLOGICAL    SCHOOL.  [chap. 

would   it  make   that    the    Iroquois    also    cultivated 
their  memory  ?     I  cannot  go  through  all  the  cases. 
The  answer  would  always  be  the  same.     Suppose 
that  every  trait  of  the  Aryas  before  their  separa- 
tion could  be  matched  by  the  Iroquois,  how  would 
that  affect  our  contention  that  the  words  common 
to  the  Aryan  languages  must   have  existed  before 
the  separation,  and   that   what    they  signify  must 
have  been  known  at  the  time  ?     Besides  the  very 
comparison  of  Aryan  and  Iroquois  beliefs  is  some- 
times most  instructive.     'According  to  the  Aryan 
belief,'  we  are  told,  '  the  soul  of  the  dead  passes  over 
a  stream,  across  a  bridge,  past  a  dog  or  two  which 
guard  the  gates  of  paradise.'     I  question  the  Pan- 
Aryan  character  of  these  beliefs ;  but  suppose  the 
statement  were  correct,  why  should  that  belief  be  less 
Aryan  because  the  Iroquois  also  believed  that  the 
spirits  on  their  journey  (to  heaven)  were  beset  with 
difficulties  and  perils  ?     '  There  was  a  swift  river  to  be 
crossed  on  a  log  that  shook  beneath  the  feet,  while  a 
ferocious  dog  opposed  their  passage.'     Supposing  all 
this  to  be  correct,  supposing  that  we  knew  exactly  what 
the  Iroquois  meant  by  their  spirits  and  their  heaven, 
and  by  the  ferocious  dog,  is  it  not  most  characteristic 
that  the  Aryas  at  that  early  time  knew  the  art  of 
building  bridges,  whereas  the  Iroquois  speak  only 
of  a  log  to  float  across  a  river  ?     But  what  then  can 
be  the  meaning  of  the  triumphant  sentence  ?     Here 
is  the  Persian's  narrow  bridge,  and  even  Kerberos 
himself1 !     What  I  cannot  understand  is  the  drift  of 
the    argument.     We   argue    because   the  name  for 
father-in-law  is  the  same  in  both  divisions  of  the 
Aryan    family,  therefore  this    peculiar    relationship 
1  Hopkins,  Religions  of  India,  p.  164. 


n]  THE    ETHNOLOGICAL    SCHOOL.  187 

must  have  been  recognised  before  the  Aryas  were 
divided  into  separate  nations.  Does  this  statement 
become  more  or  less  true  because  certain  savages 
have  no  such  name,  or  because  the  Iroquois  have  it  ? 
On  such  terms  argument  would  simply  become  im- 
possible. Nor  do  I  see  the  object  of  saying  that 
'  how  primitive  is  a  certain  religious  idea  will  not 
be  shown  by  simple  comparison  of  Aryan  parallels.' 
Who  could  have  said  so  ?  All  that  Schrader  and 
others  say  is  that  the  concepts  which  have  the 
same  name  in  Sanskrit  and  Greek  must  have  been 
known  before  Sanskrit  was  different  from  Greek, 
and  Greek  from  Sanskrit.  I  do  not  undertake  to 
measure  the  end  of  that  Pan-Aryan  period  by 
thousands  or  ten  thousands  of  years,  but  compared 
with  anything  else  we  know,  such  a  period  may 
surely  be  called  primitive.  And  suppose,  as  we  are 
told,  that  these  primitive  ideas,  are  really  '  per- 
primitive,  aboriginal  with  no  one  race,  but  with  the 
race  of  man,'  what  then  ?  Is  it  therefore  less  in- 
structive to  know  which  of  these  per-primitive  ideas 
had  been  realised  by  the  Aryas,  long  before  the  Vedic 
period,  and  which  by  the  Iroquois  at  the  present  time  ? 
Are  we  to  sacrifice  the  whole  historical  articulation 
in  the  development  of  the  human  race  as  known  to 
us  and  to  jump  straight  from  the  Veda  into  humanity 
at  large  ?  It  is  the  greatest  charm  of  our  studies 
to  watch  this  development  from  period  to  period, 
from  station  to  station,  to  go  backward  from  the 
Vedic  to  the  Indo-Iranian  period,  and  from  the 
Indo-Aryan  to  the  Pan-Aryan  period.  Even  in 
modern  history  we  do  not  trace  a  living  English 
word  like  six,  straight  to  Sanskrit  shut,  still  less  to 
the  Pan- Aryan  sveks,  but  we  go  step  by  step  from 


l88  THE    ETHNOLOGICAL    SCHOOL.  [chap. 

six  to  Anglo-Saxon  six,  and  then  to  parallel  forms 
such  as  Gothic  sains,  Lat.  sex,  and  Sanskrit  sh&t; 
just  as  we  derive  French  cinq  not  straight  from  Sk. 
pa?lXan,  nor  from  Greek  irevre  or  7re'/x7re,but  from  Latin 
quinque,  and  then  only,  if  we  follow  Schleicher, 
from  Aryan  pankan  or  kankan. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  justly  Prof.  Hopkins 
reasons  when  he  determines  which  gods  were  Aryan 
and  which  were  not,  and  when  he  protests  against 
Oldenberg's  attempt  to  make  out  that  Varuna  was 
a  borrowed  god  of  Semitic  origin. 

'The  modern  character  of  Oldenberg's  work,'  he 
writes  \  '  wull  make  it  popular  with  anthropologists, 
and  we  may  expect  to  hear  it  cited  for  a  long  time  as 
authority  for  anti-solar  mycologists.  The  more  we 
study  primitive  religion,  however,  the  more  we  are 
likely  to  learn  that  religion  is  not  all  from  one 
seed,  and  that  solar  deities  after  all  have  existed 
and  do  exist.' 

But  does  not  the  same  argument  hold  good  with 
regard  to  savage  races  ?  Why  should  not  they  also  have 
arrived  at  religious  and  mythological  ideas  similar  to 
those  of  the  Vedic  Rishis  or  the  Homeric  Greeks  ? 
But  this  would  not  establish  a  historical  connection 
between  these  different  though  parallel  streams  of 
thought.  The  Aryan  stream  would  run  its  own 
course,  and  so  would  that  of  the  Iroquois.  The  Aryan 
would  not  cease  to  be  Aryan  because  it  was  like  the 
Iroquois,  nor  the  Iroquois  cease  to  be  Iroquois  because 
it  was  like  the  Aryan.  As  to  settling  any  chrono- 
logical relation  between  the  two,  that  is  out  of  the 
question,  nor  has  it  ever  been  attempted  to  show 
that   Iroquois  civilisation  was  more  primitive  than 

1  Proceedings  of  A.  0.  B.f  Dec.  1894,  p.  cliv. 


Il]  THE    ETHNOLOGICAL    SCHOOL.  1 89 

the  Aryan,  or  the  Aryan  more  primitive  than  the 
Iroquois.  Clearness  of  thought  is  in  fact  all  that  is 
required  for  the  treatment  of  these  problems,  and  the 
smallest  respect  for  logic  would  render  the  very 
proposition  of  certain  problems  impossible. 

There  are  coincidences  between  the  myths  and 
customs  of  certain  nations  which  as  yet  cannot  be 
accounted  for  at  all,  at  least  not  by  historical  con- 
tact, nor  are  they  such  as  to  lend  themselves  easily 
to  be  looked  upon  as  the  outcome  of  our  common 
human  nature. 

If,  for  instance,  the  Fins  l  carry  little  stones  in 
their  pockets,  and  consider  them  miraculous  or  lucky, 
it  does  not  follow  that  at  one  time  or  other  they 
must  have  been  in  close  contact  with  African  fetish- 
worshippers,  or  have  passed  independently  through 
a  phase  of  fetishism  like  the  Africans  who,  we  are 
told,  never  do  anything  without  the  help  of  their 
Wongs  2.  This  is  again  a  case  of  non  sequitur.  We 
have  our  horse-shoes  over  our  doors,  and  we  say  quite 
seriously  that  they  are  lucky.  We  do  not  like  to  dine 
thirteen  at  the  same  table,  because  people  maintain 
that  it  is  unlucky.  But  we  can  find  explanations 
for  such  superstitions  much  nearer  home,  without 
having  to  go  to  Finland  or  to  the  Jolofs.  I  still  main- 
tain what  I  have  often  maintained,  that  we  should 
begin  our  researches  as  near  home  as  possible,  and 
avoid  far-fetched  comparisons  as  long  as  possible. 

Comparison  of  Aryan  and  Non-Aryan  Languages. 
What  we  have  really  a  right  to  expect  in  com- 
paring the  mythologies  and  religions  of  savage  races 

1  Castren,  Finnische  Mythologie,  p.  197,  note. 

2  Waitz,  Anthropologic,  ii,  p.  183. 


190  ARYAN    AND    NON-ARYAN    LANGUAGES.        [chap. 

with   those   of  Greeks  and  Romans,   we  may  hest 
learn  if  we  look  at  the  lessons  taught  us  by  a  com- 
parison of  the  dialects  of  savage  races  with  the  lan- 
guages of  highly  cultivated  literary  nations.     Some 
advantage,  no  doubt,  can  be  gained  and  has  been 
gained   by   such    comparisons,    but    they   are    of  a 
peculiar  character,  and  very  different  from  the  re- 
sults obtained  by  a  comparison  of  Greek  and  Sans- 
krit, or  of  any  languages  genealogically  connected 
with  one  another.    Certain  general  principles  govern 
the  construction  of  all  languages,  whether  of  savage 
or  of  civilised  tribes,  because,  after  all,  language  is 
the  realisation  of  human  reason,  which  in  its  essence 
is  the  same  everywhere.     To  discover  such  general 
principles,  and  to  point  out  their  presence  in  lan- 
guages  which    never   had    any  contact    in    historic 
times,  is  extremely  valuable,  but  an   undertaking 
of  great  difficulty.     After  comparing  the  language 
of  the  Kafirs  with  that  of  the  Greeks,  we  may  dis- 
cover certain  common  features,  but  even  then  we 
should  never  venture  to  say  that  the  language  of 
the  Kafirs  was  chronologically  older  than  that  of 
the  Greeks,  or  formed  in  any  sense  the  antecedent 
of  Greek,  or  vice  versa.     Such  a  statement  would 
hardly  convey  any  rational  meaning,  for  assuming 
that  there  ever  was  a  race  of  Homines  alali,  we  have 
no  evidence  by  which  to  fix  a  date  when  the  speech- 
less ancestors  of  the  inhabitants  of  Africa  began  to 
utter,  still  less  can  we  prove  that  this  date  must  be 
fixed  before  or  after  the  time  when  the  ancestors  of 
the  Aryas  formed  their  first  roots.    There  are  as  many 
petrified  or  irregular  forms  in  the  Hottentot  as  in 
the  Greek  languages,  showing  that  both  must  have 
passed  through  uncounted  periods  of  development 


Il]  ARYAN    AND    NON-ARYAN    LANGUAGES.  191 

before  they  became  what  we  know  them  to  be.  But 
it  by  no  means  follows,  that  these  periods  must 
everywhere  have  had  exactly  the  same  character 
and  the  same  sequence. 

What  happens  in  grammar  happens  in  mythology. 
The  general  principles  determining  the  origin  and 
growth  of  both  language  and  mythology  may  be 
the  same,  they  may  be  psychologically  or  humanly 
intelligible,  for  they  are  the  principles  followed  by 
rational  beings.  Their  application,  however,  admits 
of  infinite  variety.  That  we  may  learn  some  very 
useful  lessons  from  the  study  of  non-Aryan  lan- 
guages I  tried  to  show  many  years  ago,  in  my 
'Letter  on  the  Turanian  Languages'  (1856).  We 
may  learn  how  the  principles  of  juxtaposition  and 
agglutination  underlie  the  principles  of  inflection  as 
prevalent  in  Aryan  speech,  but  we  must  not  expect 
that  the  system  of  agglutination  or  of  incapsulation, 
as  carried  out  in  some  of  the  American  languages, 
prevailed  by  necessity  among  the  framers  of  Aryan 
speech,  even  if  we  come  across  such  forms  as  yug 
and  yu-na-(/-mi. 

It  is  true  that  the  system  of  Egyptian  determi- 
natives, as  well  as  the  prefix-repetition  in  the  Bantu 
languages,  gives  us  a  useful  hint  as  to  the  possible 
origin  of  what  we  call  gender  in  Sanskrit,  but  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  ancestors  of  the  Aryas  ever 
said  like  the  Bantus ] :  'The  steamship  our- ship 
which-ship  is  a  great -ship — the  ship  appears,  we 
love  the  ship,'  instead  of  saying:  Our  steamship 
which  is  great  comes  in  sight,  and  we  like  it. 

What  we   could  say  with   perfect   truth   is   that 

1  Bleek,  A  Comparative  Grammar  of  the  South  African 
Languages  (1869),  part  ii.  p.  107. 


I92  ARYAN    AND    NON-ARYAN    LANGUAGES.        [chap. 

there  is  reason  even  in  these  clumsy  contrivances, 
and  that,  as  the  Kafir  also  is  our  brother,  we  may 
discover  the  same  kind  of  reason  in  our  gender, 
when  we  say:  Magna  navis  nostra  vaporalis  con- 
specta  est,  quam  amamus  ;  while  the  Kafir  would 
say:  The  steamer,  our-er,  which- er  is  a  great-er: 
the-er  appears,  we  love  the-er. 

It  strikes  me  that  to  say  that  the  Aryan  speakers 
must  have  been  fetishists  or  totemists,  would  be  no 
more  justifiable  than  to  say  that  they  must  have 
passed  through  a  period  of  '  prefix  or  suffix-concord,' 
such  as  we  have  just  described,  and  which  exists  to 
the  present  day  in  the  Bantu  family,  because  we  find 
traces  of  suffix  concord  in  equus  bonus  and  equa 
bona. 

Comparison  of  Aryan  and  Non- Aryan  Mythologies. 

This  will  give  us  the  measure  of  what  we  have 
a  right  to  expect  from  a  comparison  of  the  mytho- 
logy of  Kafirs  and  Hottentots  with  that  of  Hindus 
or  Greeks.  These  people  might  well  agree  in  a 
general  belief  that  the  world  was  made  by  some 
one,  that  it  will  come  to  an  end,  that  there  are 
powers  of  light  and  powers  of  darkness,  that  certain 
things  are  tabu  or  forbidden  not  only  by  human  but 
by  a  superhuman  authority.  All  this  may  be,  and  if 
it  is  so,  we  need  be  no  more  surprised  than  if  we 
find  prepositions  and  postpositions  in  their  language, 
singular  and  plural,  nominative  and  accusative, 
numerals  from  one  to  ten,  &c.  All  such  coincidences 
would  be  perfectly  intelligible  if  they  exist,  though 
it  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  they  should  exist. 
Even  if  we  should  find  the  same  or  nearly  the  same 
word  for  father,  mother,  cat,  and  dog  in  Greek  and 


n]  ARYAN    AND    NON-ARYAN    MYTHOLOGIES.  1 93 

Hottentot,  we  might  account  for  such  similarity  by 
means  of  onomatopoeia.  But  if,  for  instance,  the 
name  for  tree  or  stone  should  be  the  same  among 
Kafirs  and  Greeks,  we  should  simply  take  a  note  of 
such  a  coincidence  without  venturing  to  draw,  as  yet, 
any  conclusions  from  it.  In  the  same  way,  if  we  come 
across  common  thoughts,  common  myths  and  cus- 
toms among  Hindus  and  Australians,  we  may  ascribe 
them  to  the  common  human  nature  of  Greeks  and 
Kafirs,  we  might  even  go  so  far  as  to  admit  that 
not  only  could  Hindu  myths  and  customs  throw 
light  on  the  myths  and  customs  of  the  Australian 
blacks,  but  vice  versa  also. 

Under  such  restrictions  as  here  pointed  out, 
a  comparison  of  the  myths  and  customs  of  uncivi- 
lised races  with  those  of  Hindus  and  Greeks  may 
be  expected  to  produce  really  useful  and  interesting 
results.  Why  should  it  not  ?  Even  a  comparison  of 
the  habits  of  men  and  monkeys  has  proved  interest- 
ing, why  not  a  comparison  of  Greeks  and  Veddahs  ? 
Only  we  must  remember  that  savages  deserve  the 
same  careful  study  as  Homer  or  Plato,  otherwise 
comparisons  between  them  will  prove  a  hindrance 
rather  than  a  help  to  the  ethnologist.  The  con- 
temptuous criticism  that  has  been  passed  on  the 
work  done  by  certain  ethnologists  may  have  seemed 
too  severe,  but  it  was  not  quite  undeserved.  They 
thought  their  task  much  easier  than  it  really  is. 
I  shall  not  repeat  here  the  warnings  expressed  by 
such  men  as  Tiele  and  Horatio  Hale,  both,  it  should 
be  remarked,  extremely  well  disposed  to  ethno- 
logical research.  Nor  shall  I  repeat  once  more  that 
to  my  mind  a  knowledge  of  the  language  is  a  sine 
qua  non  for  any  honest  work  in  this  direction.     Not 

vol.  I.  o 


194  AEYAN    AND    NON-ARYAN    MYTHOLOGIES,      [chap. 

a  word  is  to  be  said  against  pointing  out  similarities 
between  amulets,  horse-shoes,  Heckepfennigs,  and 
similar  curiosities,  and  the  so-called  fetishes  of  the 
negroes  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  But  this  is 
not  enough.  It  will  leave  us  with  mere  coincidences, 
and  their  really  scientific  interest  can  only  begin 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  intention  or  the  reason 
of  the  two  was  the  same.  The  original  meaning  of 
totem  and  fetish  was  of  course  that  in  which  these 
terms  were  used  by  those  who  first  used  them, 
or  by  those  who  first  discovered  them,  North 
American  missionaries  and  Portuguese  sailors  on 
the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  Tampering  with  them 
is  dangerous. 

De  Brosses  and  Fetishism. 
We  must  never  forget  that  Fetish  was  a  name 
given  originally  by  Portuguese  sailors  to  the  amulets, 
talismans,  charms,  or  whatever  else  we  may  call 
them,  found  in  large  quantities  among  the  negroes 
of  the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  The  sailors  naturally 
misunderstood  the  character  of  what  they  called 
fetishes ;  De  Brosses  misunderstood  the  sailors, 
Comte  misunderstood  De  Brosses.  It  has  been 
proved  again  and  again,  more  particularly  by  Waitz, 
that  fetishism  by  itself  never  existed  as  a  religion 
at  all  *,  and  that  these  fetishes  formed  but  a  small 
part  of  their  religion.  It  was  chiefly  owing  to  De 
Brosses  that  fetish  came  to  be  used  as  a  convenient 
term  for  anything  held  sacred,  without  there  being 
any  apparently  sufficient  reason  for  it.  The  stone 
swallowed  by  Kronos,  the  Palladium  that  fell  from 
the  sky,  the  hasta  of  the  Fetiales,  the  Men-an-tols 

1  Hibbert  Lectures,  Lect.  II,  '  Is  Fetishism  a  primitive  form 
of  religion  ? ' 


Il]  DE    BR0SSES    AND    FETISHISM.  195 

of  the  Celts,  all  Roman  Catholic  relics,  the  crucifix 
not  excluded,  have  been  classed  as  fetishes,  nay,  the 
sun  and  moon  themselves  have  not  always  escaped 
this  vague  nomenclature. 

It  seems  to  have  been  almost  forgotten  that  even 
so  sober  a  scholar  as  old  Buttmann,  the  author  of 
the  Mythologus  and  Philologus,  had  a  slight  attack 
of  fetishism  as  far  back  as  the  year  1828. 

'  The  Latin  lar,'  he  writes  (Mythologus,  p.  9),  '  is 
evidently  the  Greek  \<xg,  and  the  concept  of  the 
house-stone  was  changed  quite  naturally  by  means 
of  religious  ideas  from  a  lar  familiaris  and  protected 
fetish  into  a  house-daemon.'  Unaware  that  Hestia 
and  Vesta  can  both  be  legitimately  derived  from 
the  Sk.  root  vas,  to  shine,  and  mean  fire,  he  seems 
inclined  to  connect  Hestia  with  the  Greek  aria, 
(ttiov,  i/ua,  ei//ia,  and  to  see  in  that  house-stone  or 
hearth-stone  also  an  'uralter  Fetisch.' 

Thus  fetishism  became  a  panacea  for  all  mytho- 
logical troubles,  and  the  acme  was  reached  when 
more  recently  a  fetish,  that  is,  an  African  charm  or 
talisman,  was  defined  as  a  totem  (an  American  em- 
blem) inhabited  by  an  ancestral  spirit  (an  Indian 
concept). 

It  may  be  said,  in  fact  it  has  been  said,  that  there 
can  at  all  events  be  no  harm  in  simply  placing  the 
myths  and  customs  of  savages  side  by  side  with 
the  myths  and  customs  of  Hindus  and  Greeks. 

But  experience  shows  that  this  is  not  so.  There 
seemed  at  first  to  be  no  harm  in  the  attempt  of 
De  Brosses  to  compare  the  so-called  fetishes  of  the 
negroes  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa  with  the  amu- 
lets and  other  material  objects  invested  with  a  sacred 
character  in   the  religions  of  Greeks  and  Romans, 

o  2 


196  DE    EROSSES    AND    FETISHISM.  [chap. 

nay,  even  of  Jews  and  Christians.  Why  should  not 
the  palladium  of  the  Greeks,  or  the  hasta  fetialis 
of  the  Romans,  be  called  a  fetish,  and  why  should 
not  the  same  name  be  given  to  the  Jewish  teraphim, 
or  to  the  Christian  cross  ?  The  word  fetish  sounds 
always  well  and  learned,  and  seemed  certainly  an 
innocent  amusement.  If  only  De  Brosses  had  tried 
to  find  out  why  these  African  negroes  looked  upon 
a  pebble  or  a  shell,  or  the  tail  of  a  tiger  as  some- 
thing sacred,  and  had  then  endeavoured  to  find  out 
whether  the  same  motives  could  be  assigned  to  his 
postulated  fetish-worship  in  Greece,  in  Rome,  in 
Judaea,  and  among  ourselves.  This  would  have 
been  a  really  scientific  proceeding,  very  different 
from  the  employment  of  a  high-sounding,  but  un- 
meaning terminology.  Still,  even  that  might  have 
passed.  But  every  carelessness,  however  small,  is 
sure  to  be  followed  by  a  nemesis.  Very  soon  De 
Brosses  and  his  disciples,  being  struck  by  the 
apparent  sinrplicity  of  fetish-worship  in  Africa  as 
a  means  of  explaining  the  sacred  character  assigned 
to  any  object,  proceeded  to  represent  it  as  the  very 
beginning  of  religion  among  the  negroes.  Very  soon 
others  followed,  who  argued  that  if  the  African 
negroes  began  with  fetish-worship,  all  other  nations 
may  or  must  have  done  the  same.  It  only  required 
a  little  more  courage  on  the  part  of  Comte  to  pro- 
claim fetishism  as  by  necessity  the  first  step  in  the 
development  of  all  religions.  This  was  the  nemesis, 
for  if  the  prophet  was  right,  his  disciples  felt  bound 
'  a  tout  prix '  to  search  for  traces  of  fetishism  in 
the  religions  of  Greeks,  Romans,  Jews,  and  later  on 
of  Hindus  and  Persians  also.  It  was  easy  enough 
to    find   fetishes,  and   if  none   could   be   found,   all 


n]  DE    BROSSES    AND    FETISHISM.  197 

that  could  be  said  was  '  tant  pis  pour  les  faits.'  We 
were  then  assured  that  fetishism  must  have  existed, 
even  though  it  might  have  left  no  traces  behind. 
Another  even  more  serious  disadvantage  was  that 
after  the  palladium,  or  the  hasta  fetialis,  or  the 
cross  had  once  been  called  fetishes,  there  was  no 
longer  any  necessity  for  trying  to  discover  by  his- 
torical research  by  what  process  each  of  these  so- 
called  fetishes  had  acquired  a  character  of  sanctity 
and  a  reputation  of  possessing  miraculous  powers. 
Here  many  really  useful  discoveries  might  have 
been  made,  if  the  name  of  fetish  had  not  been  sup- 
posed to  answer  all  questions,  and  to  cover  all  sins. 
Nor  was  even  this  all  the  mischief  caused  by  the 
rash  generalisation  of  De  Brosses  and  Comte.  Two 
postulates  underlying  his  theory  were  soon  put 
forward  openly,  viz.  that  modern  savages  represent 
everywhere  the  Eocene  stratum  of  religion,  that  they 
are  the  children  of  nature,  just  evolved  from  the 
earth  or  the  sky,  or,  in  more  recent  language,  from 
our  unknown  Simian  ancestors.  This  sounds  very 
plausible  as  a  postulate,  but  it  has  never  been  j^roved. 
What  we  know  is  that  the  languages  of  these  modern 
savages  are  full  of  anomalies,  which  require  antece- 
dents ;  and  that  their  customs,  e.  g.  those  of  marriage 
and  inheritance,  are  knotted  and  gnarled  beyond 
anything  known  to  us  in  India,  Greece,  or  Rome. 
A  second  postulate  soon  followed,  that  however 
different  the  languages,  customs  and  myths,  the 
colour  and  the  skulls  of  these  modern  savages  might 
be  from  those  of  Aryan  and  Semitic  people,  the 
latter  must  once  have  passed  through  the  same 
stage,  must  once  have  been  what  the  negroes  of  the 
West  Coast  of  Africa  are  to-day.    This  postulate  has 


198  DE    BROSSES    AND    FETISHISM.  [chap. 

not  been,  and,  according  to  its  very  nature,  cannot 
be  proved.  But  the  mischief  done  by  acting  on  such 
postulates  is  still  going  on,  and  in  several  cases  it 
has  come  to  this,  that  what  in  historical  religions, 
such  as  our  own,  is  known  to  be  the  most  modern, 
the  very  last  outcome,  namely,  the  worship  of  relics 
or  a  belief  in  amulets,  has  been  represented  as  the 
first  necessary  step  in  the  evolution  of  all  religions. 

Totemism. 
What  has  been  said  against  the  theory  of  De 
Brosses,  revived  by  Comte,  as  to  a  universal 
primitive  Fetishism,  applies  with  equal  force  to 
what  has  been  called  by  the  undefined  name  of 
totemism.  We  know  that  totem  is  the  corruption 
of  a  term  used  by  North  American  Indians  in  the 
sense  of  clan-mark,  or  sign-board  (ododam)1.  We 
must  always  remember  that  the  name  of  totem 
belonged  originally  to  rude  emblems  of  animals  or 
other  objects  placed  by  Red  Indians  in  front  of  their 
clearings  or  settlements,  as  the  arms  of  a  city  used 
to  be  placed  over  the  gateway  of  its  walls.  It  would 
be  very  difficult  at  present  to  find  out  whether  in 
North  America  the  people  of  each  settlement  took 
their  names  from  these  sign-boards  or  vice  versa. 
In  either  case,  however,  we  can  well  understand 
that  the  bear  or  the  eagle  of  the  sign-board  should 
in  time  have  been  looked  up  to  as  the  leader  and 
ancestor  of  the  tribe  ;  that  the  animal  itself  should 
have  assumed  a  sacred  character,  and  that,  as  a 
rule,  people  should  have  abstained  from  eating  the 
flesh  of  their  reputed  ancestors.   All  this  is  perfectly 

1  Nind  otem  means  my  clan  mark,  hence  dotem  and  totem, 
my  mark. 


Il]  TOTEMISM.  I99 

human,  perfectly  intelligible,  not  to  say  rational,  and 
it  may  correctly  be  called  Totemism.  But  we  must 
remember  that  all  this  applies  in  the  first  instance 
to  the  Red  Indians  only,  and  that  not  every  stick  or 
sign-post  was  meant  for  a  totem,  nay,  that  even 
among  the  Red  Indians  the  antecedents  of  totems 
were  very  different.  If  therefore  the  undefined 
term  of  totemism  is  generalised,  and  we  are  told,  for 
instance,  that  the  stake  to  which  the  victims  were 
tied  at  a  Vedic  sacrifice  has  to  be  classed  as  a  totem, 
we  must  protest  in  the  name  of  the  Red  as  well  as 
of  the  Brown  Indians.  If  the  sacrificial  Yupa  may 
be  called  a  totem,  is  there  anything  that  could  not 
claim  the  same  name  ? 

Nor  does  it  follow  that  every  tribe  whose  name  is 
derived  from  the  name  of  an  animal  had  once  wor- 
shipped that  animal  as  a  totem.  A  tribe,  as  I  have 
shown  elsewhere,  may  for  ever  so  many  reasons  have 
been  called  bears  and  snakes,  or  have  worshipped 
certain  animals  and  abstained  from  eating  them. 
Thus  Oldendorp  tells  us  that  the  Mandingos  wor- 
shipped the  pig,  and  would  not  eat  it.  But  why  ? 
Because  a  pig  had,  by  chance,  to  quench  his  own 
thirst,  conducted  an  army  of  Mandingos  to  a  well. 
To  say  that  the  Orsini  as  well  as  the  Arcadians  had 
once  a  bear  for  their  totem,  all  Nagas  a  serpent,  all 
Kasyapas  a  tortoise,  all  Vatsas  a  calf,  all  Hessians 
(Chatti)  a  cat,  all  Soshonis  or  Gens  des  Serpents 
a  serpent,  is  going  too  far,  nay  is,  as  we  know  in 
many  cases,  utterly  wrong  \ 

If  totem  which,  as  we  saw,  has  its  correct  meaning 


1  Anthropological    Religion,    p.    403,    Appendix    III,     'On 
Totems  and  their  various  origin.' 


200 


TOTEMISM.  [chap. 


when  applied  to  the  totems  of  the  Red  Indians,  is 
transferred  to  a  Vedic  god  such  as  Indra  in  his 
theriomorphic  form,  if  even  Mitra  and  other  Vedic, 
nay  even  Egyptian  gods  are  classed  as  totems,  the 
meaning  of  that  term  must  be  very  much  enlarged, 
nay,  it  would  become  altogether  separated  from  its 
original  intention.  What  should  we  gain  if  we 
called  Indra,  as  soon  as  he  is  invoked  as  a  bull, 
a  totem  ?  We  should  only  deprive  ourselves  of  the 
means  of  understanding  the  process  by  which  the 
Vedic  poets  came  to  apply  such  animal  epithets  to 
their  gods 1. 

The  Veda  itself  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  process 
by  which  the  names  of  certain  animals  were  applied 
to  Indra.  If  he  was  called  vrishan  or  vWshabha, 
bull,  I  think  I  have  proved  by  more  than  sufficient 
evidence  (Vedic  Hymns,  S.  B.  E.,  xxxii,  p.  138  seq.) 
that  these  words  meant  simply  male,  manly,  strong, 
so  that  although  the  animal  simile  was  sometimes 
taken  advantage  of  by  the  poets,  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  Indra  was  ever  conceived  as  a  real  animal, 
still  less  as  a  totem.  Later  heroes  in  epic  poetry 
also  are  called  lions  or  bulls,  yet  there  is  no  more 
idea  in  their  case  of  their  having  been  totems  or 
possessing  horns  and  tails  than  in  the  case  of  John 
Bull.  When  the  Dawn  is  called  a  cow,  or  the  mother 
of  cows,  when  she  is  called  asva,  a  mare,  when  the 
sun  is  called  a  horse,  a  swan,  or  a  bird  in  general,  we 
can  clearly  see  that  all  this  is  the  simplest  poetical 
metaphor.  If  we  read,  Big-veda  VII,  77,  3,  that  the 
Dawn   leads  the  white   horse,  does  any  one   doubt 

1  See  on  this  subject  the  abundant  evidence  collected  by 
Mannhardt  in  his  Germanische  Mythen,  s.  v.  Sonne,  &c. 


Il]  T0TEM1SM.  20I 

what  the  poet  means  ?  And  when  in  the  same  verse 
she  is  called  the  eye  of  the  gods,  is  that  also  a  totem 
or  a  fetish  ?  As  the  sun  flies  through  the  air,  it  is 
called  a  bird  or  a  swan,  as  it  is  very  swift,  it  is 
called  a  racer,  as  the  dawn  steps  out  of  the  stable 
of  the  night,  she  is  called  a  cow  or  the  mother  of 
the  cows.  We  can  perfectly  understand  how  the 
sun  came  to  be  compared  to  one  or  many  objects, 
but  if  the  sun  as  a  horse  had  been  a  totem,  it  could 
not  have  been  at  the  same  time  another  totem,  a 
swan.  A  totem  is  a  clan-mark,  then  a  clan  name, 
then  the  name  of  the  ancestor  of  a  clan,  and  lastly 
the  name  of  something  worshipped  by  a  clan.  If  it 
is  to  mean  anything  else,  a  new  definition  should  be 
given,  or,  still  better,  another  name  should  be  used. 
If,  for  instance,  it  is  proposed  to  account  for  such 
clan  names  as  Matsyas  (fishes),  Kasyapas  (turtles), 
A^as  (goats),  $unakas  (dogs),  Ikshvakus  (cucumbers), 
as  survivals  of  totemism,  I  can  see  no  great  harm, 
though  everybody  knows  from  how  many  different 
sources  national  names  have  been  derived,  and  how 
little  it  follows  that  all  animals  which  constitute 
forbidden  food,  are  survivals  of  totems. 

So  again,  if  anybody  likes  to  call  the  wheel  as 
representing  the  sun  a  fetish  or  a  totem,  there  is  not 
much  mischief  done,  except  that  the  original  and 
scientific  meaning  of  these  terms  is  sacrificed,  and 
the  real  origin  of  this  solar  appellation  is  slurred 
over.  If  fetish  and  totem  are  to  be  used  in  this  all- 
embracing  sense,  we  shall  have  to  invent  new  names 
for  the  fetishes  and  totems  on  the  West  Coast  of 
Africa,  and  in  the  North  of  America. 

It  might  be   possible   to  explain   every  kind  of 
theriolatry  by  totemism.     Why  should  not  all  the 


202 


T0TEMISM.  [CHAP. 


gods  of  Egypt  with  their  heads  of  bulls,  and  apes 
and  cats  be  survivals  of  totemism  ?  But  though  it 
would  relieve  Egyptologists  of  a  great  difficulty, 
none  of  the  leading  hieroglyphic  scholars  seems  as 
yet  to  have  availed  himself  of  this  remedy.  The 
beasts  of  the  four  apostles  also  have  as  yet  escaped, 
as  well  as  the  Paschal  and  Mystic  lambs  ;  but  will 
they  be  safe  much  longer  ? 

Herbert  Spencer's  Ancestor- Worship. 
We  have  next  to  consider  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's 
theory  of  a  primitive  ancestor- worship  in  its  in- 
fluence on  mythology  and  religion.  Here  it  is  but 
fair  to  say  that  much  credit  is  due  to  Mr.  H. 
Spencer  for  having  traced  the  wide  extension  of 
ancestor-worship  among  uncivilised  and  civilised 
races.  This  was  a  real  gain  and  showed  once  more 
the  great  power  of  generalisation  possessed  by  that 
philosopher.  The  mischief  began  when  he,  like 
De  Brosses,  tried  to  represent  the  belief  in  and  the 
worship  of  ancestral  spirits  as  the  most  primitive, 
nay,  as  a  necessary  phase  in  the  evolution  of 
religion.  A  study  of  Vedic  literature  would  have 
shown  him  that  ancestor-worship,  though  it  may 
exist  side  by  side  with  Deva-worship,  always  pre- 
supposes Deva-worship,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
these  ancestral  spirits  could  not  have  been  deified 
except  by  people  who  had  already  elaborated  the  idea 
of  Devas  or  dii.  The  idea  that  the  Devas  or  gods 
of  nature  were  deified  ancestral  spirits  is  not  only 
contradictory  in  itself,  but  it  is  unsupported  by 
any  evidence,  so  far  as  I  know.  The  true  relation 
between  the  worship  of  the  Devas  of  nature  and  the 
offerings  made  to  the  spirits  of  the   departed,  the 


n]  HERBERT    SPENCER?S    ANCESTOR-WORSHIP.  203 

so-called  Pitris,  can  nowhere  be  studied  more  fully 
than  in  the  Vedas ;  yet,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
instead  of  studying  ancestor-worship,  where  it  could 
have  been  thoroughly,  nay  historically,  studied, 
Mr.  H.  Spencer  has  preferred  to  study  it  from 
the  fragmentary  accounts  collected  by  missionaries 
among  the  races  of  Africa,  particularly  the  Zulu 
tribes. 

Bishop  Callaway. 
Nothing  could  be  more  interesting  and  valuable 
than  the  works  of  the  late  Bishop  Callaway  on  the 
customs  and  superstitions  of  the  Zulus.  They  be- 
long to  the  very  best  of  this  class  of  works.  The 
Bishop  had  made  himself  a  Zulu  scholar,  and  he 
enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  natives  whose  re- 
ligious opinions  he  attempted  to  delineate.  Who 
has  not  admired  his  account  of  Unkulunkulu,  the 
great-grandfather  who,  as  he  represented  him,  was 
clearly  an  ancestral  spirit  and  had  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  the  class  of  physical  gods,  such  as  Dyaus 
and  the  Devas  of  the  Veda.  And  yet  we  now 
receive  from  Zululand  itself  an  account  of  Unku- 
lunkulu from  the  hand,  as  it  would  seem,  of  a 
native  ',  very  different  from  that  given  by  Bishop 
Callaway.  The  writer  insists  on  the  necessity  of 
great  care  and  discrimination  in  collecting  the  folk- 
lore of  the  Zulus.  He  says  that  the  Zulus  will 
produce  anything  they  are  asked  to  produce.  '  We 
have,'  he  writes,  '  in  Kafir  legends,  an  Adam  and 
Eve  ;  we  have  a  Tree  of  Life,  that  if  they  ate  of  it, 
they  should  die  ;  we  have  the  human  kind  coming 


1  Inkanyiso    Yase    Natal   (Pieteimaritzburg,   Natal,   Lwesih- 
lenu,  March  22,  April  12,  May  21). 


204  BISHOP    CALLAWAY.  [chap. 

into  existence  from  a  bed  of  reeds,  which  is  the  re- 
peopling  of  the  earth  after  the  Flood,  we  have  the 
story  of  Joseph  and  many  more.'  But  whence  do 
they  come  ?  He  then  refers  to  the  account  which 
Bishop  Callaway  gave  of  Unkulunkulu  (great-great- 
one  or  god),  and  throws  serious  doubts  on  its  ac- 
curacy. I  cannot  enter  here  into  all  his  speculations 
about  the  Amabele  and  other  kindred  subjects, 
because  I  do  not  feel  competent  to  control  his  ety- 
mological speculations.  But  I  shall  quote  at  least 
what  he  writes  about  Unkulunkulu.  '  The  word 
u-Nkulunkulu,'  he  says,  'means,  or  at  any  rate 
seems  to  mean,  the  great-great-one,  and  this  great- 
great-one,  Bishop  Callaway  says,  is  merely  some 
great-great-grandparent  of  the  Zulu  nation,  or  any 
other  venerable  ancestor.'  Our  informant,  without 
knowing  apparently  anything  of  the  Yeda,  or  of  the 
connection  between  deva,  god,  and  dyu,  sky,  in  the 
Aryan  languages,  goes  on  to  argue  that  the  real  origin 
of  the  name  of  Unkulunkulu,  in  all  its  local  varieties, 
must  be  found  in  a  word  expressing  originally  the 
material  sky,  and  he  compares 


Heeero, 

Bondei, 

Swahili. 

Heaven  :  e-yuru, 

u-langa, 

mu-ingu. 

God :         mu-kuru, 

mu-lungu, 

mu-ungu. 

For  Zulu  he  quotes  i-zulu  heaven,  but  this  can 
hardly  be  compared  with  u-Nkulunkulu.  I  repeat 
that  I  can  in  no  way  vouch  for  the  accuracy  of 
these  statements,  but  I  quote  them  here  in  order 
to  show  how  uncertain  is  even  the  very  best  evi- 
dence which  we  receive  concerning  the  language, 
the  customs  and  myths  of  savage  tribes,  and  how 
careful  we  ought  to  be  before  we  use  it  for  our  own 


Ii]  BISHOP    CALLAWAY.  205 

purposes.  If  our  Zulu  informant  can  say  that 
Bishop  Callaway  '  got  bogged  in  a  philological  mess,' 
what  would  he  say  of  us  if  attempting  to  build  on 
such  boggy  foundations  tall  structures  of  mytho- 
logical philosophy.  We  ought  not  to  be  too 
exacting,  but  we  ought  to  be  cautious.  If  the 
very  best  work  like  that  of  Bishop  Callaway  can 
be  called  boggy,  where  shall  we  find  solid  ground  ? 

We  cannot  find  a  better  authority  on  Zulus  and 
Kafirs  than  the  Bishop  himself.  But  if  we  remember 
how  under  cross-examination  his  witnesses  con- 
tradicted not  only  each  other,  but  even  themselves, 
we  shall  not  wonder  that  sometimes  the  evidence  of 
different  ethnological  observers  differs  like  black 
and  white.  Till  very  lately,  for  instance,  it  was 
stated  in  books  on  anthropology,  that  the  Coreans 
like  many  other  tribes,  mourned  in  white  and  not 
in  black.  Mr.  E.  von  Hesse  Wartegg  in  his  book 
on  Corea  published  in  1895,  states  from  his  own 
observation  that  they  mourn  in  black  and  not  in 
white !  What  are  we  hapless  students  to  do  at 
home,  unless  we  take  liberties  and  say  that  probably 
the  rules  of  mourning  differed  in  different  parts  of 
Corea,  or,  it  may  be,  in  different  ranks  of  society. 
I  can  admire  this  courage  in  some  of  our  intrepid 
students  of  customs  and  myths,  but  I  cannot  imitate 
it.  I  know  what  our  dangers  are  nearer  home,  and 
I  cannot  shut  my  eyes  to  dangers  far  away.  If  we 
can  no  longer  quote  Callaway  on  Zulus,  or  Hahn  on 
Hottentots,  whom  shall  we  quote  ? 

Uncertainty  of  Ethnological  Evidence. 

It  should  also  be  remembered  that  those  who  on 
account  of  long  residence  and  intimate  knowledge 


2o6     UNCERTAINTY  OF  ETHNOLOGICAL  EVIDENCE,      [chap. 

of  the  language  are  best  qualified  to  describe 
the  customs,  the  myths  and  traditions  of  savage 
races,  are  most  outspoken  in  warning  students  in 
Europe  against  placing  implicit  reliance  in  their 
statements  and  explanations.  This  is  very  much 
to  their  honour.  Nor  does  Bishop  Callaway  stand 
alone  in  expressing  distrust  in  his  own  observations 
and  warning  us  against  hasty  generalisations.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Codrington,  an  authority  equally  high  on 
the  customs  and  myths  of  the  Melanesians,  who 
were  supposed  to  abound  in  totems  and  fetishes, 
will,  as  we  saw,  have  no  totems  in  his  islands. 
Nothing  could  be  more  useful  to  home  students 
of  the  folklore  of  savage  races  than  his  remarks  in 
his  classical  work  on  '  The  Melanesians,  their  An- 
thropology and  Folklore,'  1891.  He  points  out 
(p.  116)  the  difficulty  of  learning  the  language, 
and  still  more  of  understanding  the  ideas  of  the 
Melanesians,  because  those  ideas  are  not  only  totally 
different  from  our  own,  but  are  mostly  undefined, 
vague,  and  constantly  changing.  Even  with  regard 
to  what  travellers  and  missionaries  profess  to  have 
actually  seen  and  heard,  he  warns  us  to  be  careful. 

'  They  expect  to  see  idols,'  he  writes, '  and  they  see 
them ;  images  are  labelled  idols  in  museums  whose 
makers  carved  them  for  amusement  ;  a  Solomon 
islander  fashions  the  head  of  his  lime-box  stick 
into  a  grotesque  figure,  and  it  becomes  the  subject 
of  a  woodcut  as  "  a  Solomon  Island  god."  If  there 
is  a  distinction  which  ought  to  be  remembered  in  the 
religion  of  the  Melanesians,  it  is  that  between  ghosts 
and  spirits,  the  former  being  the  spirits  of  the  dead, 
the  latter  spiritual  beings  that  never  have  been  men, 
whom  elsewhere  we  should  call  gods,  such  as  the 
gods  of  the  sea,  the  land,  the  mountains  and  valleys. 


nl  UNCERTAINTY  OF  ETHNOLOGICAL  EVIDENCE.        207 

In  some  islands  exclusive  worship  is  paid  to  ghosts, 
in  others  to  spirits,  while  there  are  natives  who,  if 
examined,  could  hardly  distinguish  between  the 
two.  Thus  in  San  Cristoval  a  spirit  is  called  a 
Figona  or  Hi'ona.  At  Florida,  vigonas  are  beings 
whose  power  exercises  itself  in  storms,  rain,  drought, 
calms,  and  in  the  growth  of  food,  but  the  natives 
think  they  must  once  have  been  men  and  not  simple 
spirits'  (p.  124). 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  understand  what  can 
be  meant  by  'simple  spirits,'  for  to  us  such 
spirits  would  seem  superior  to  mere  ghosts.  This 
shows  the  difference  in  our  intellectual  atmospheres. 
An  intelligent  native,  when  brought  to  book  as  to 
his  idea  of  a  spirit  or  vui,  produced  the  following 
definition.  '  It  lives,  thinks,  has  more  intelligence 
than  a  man,  knows  things  which  are  secret,  without 
seeing;  is  supernaturally  powerful  with  mana;  has 
no  form  to  be  seen  ;  has  no  soul,  because  itself  is 
like  a  soul.'  This  sounds  very  well,  but  what  ideas 
can  we  connect  with  a  being  that  has  no  soul,  and 
yet  lives  and  thinks,  and  is  like  a  soul  ?  We  know 
how  difficult  it  is  to  give  an  exact  definition  of 
anima,  animus,  xjjvxn  or  Ovfxos,  though  we  possess 
long  treatises  on  the  meanings  of  these  names,  but 
with  regard  to  ghosts  and  spirits  among  the  Mela- 
nesians,  oar  authorities,  whether  missionaries,  traders, 
or  writers  on  ethnology  seem  troubled  by  no  diffi- 
culties, even  if  they  do  not  go  quite  so  far  as  some 
who  know  beforehand  that  all  savages  must  have 
begun  with  fetishism  or  totemism,  &c. 

Animism. 
One  more  danger  arising  from  a  premature  com- 
parison between  the  mythologies   of  civilised  and 


208  ANIMISM.  [chap. 

uncivilised  people,  has  to  be  pointed  out.  Animism 
or  Beseelung  or  even  Personification  are  all  very 
good  names  for  the  various  processes  by  which 
inanimate  objects  have  at  all  times  and  in  all  places 
been  changed  into  animate  subjects.  This  is  very 
different  from  mere  fetishism,  but,  like  fetishism,  it 
requires  an  explanation  and  very  careful  definition. 
If  Animism  means  the  ascribing  of  a  soul  to  soulless 
objects,  this  is  a  very  vague  and  unmeaning  answer. 
The  first  question  is  what  kind  of  soul  is  thus 
ascribed,  an  animal  or  a  human,  or,  as  some  hold, 
even  a  divine  soul,  a  merely  perceiving  or  an  actually 
rational  soul.  Among  savage  people  we  have 
generally  to  be  satisfied  with  the  mere  fact  that 
they  ascribe  an  animal  form  or  certain  animal 
qualities  to  some  of  their  gods.  But  with  civilised 
races  this  Animism  admits  of  ever  so  many  shades, 
and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  ethnologist  to  trace 
every  kind  of  animism  back  to  its  real  source. 

True  Origin  of  Animism. 
It  is  in  India  that  Animism  has  been  made  to 
disclose  its  secret  springs,  and  been  traced  back  to 
an  intelligible  cause,  namely  the  necessity  of  deriving 
all  appellative  nouns  from  roots,  necessarily  expres- 
sive, as  Noire  has  shown,  of  action,  so  that,  whether 
we  like  it  or  not,  the  sun,  whether  called  Svar  or 
Vishrai,  bull,  swan,  or  any  other  name,  becomes 
ipso  nomine  an  agent,  the  shiner,  or  the  wanderer, 
the  strong  man,  the  swift  bird.  By  the  same 
process  the  wind  is  the  blower,  the  night  the  calmer, 
the  moon,  Soma,  the  rainer.  Hence  the  large 
number  of  physical  agents,  the  Acteurs  physiques, 
whom  we  know  as  the  Devas  of  the  Vedas.     These 


n]  TRUE    ORIGIN    OF    ANIMISM.  209 

Devas  are  not  the  sky,  the  sun,  and  the  moon, 
they  are  the  agents  or  the  souls  of  these  celestial 
bodies.  Even  the  savage  inhabitants  of  Florida  and 
Ysabel  do  not  take  the  sun  itself  for  a  person,  but 
believe  in  a  person  who  goes  with  the  sun  and 
whose  name  is  sun1.  And  if  we  go  a  step  further, 
and  find  Agni,  for  instance,  the  agent  of  the  fire, 
represented  in  the  Veda  as  a  horse,  we  can  see  that 
this  again  was  meant  for  no  more  than  the  quickly 
moving  agent  of  the  fire.  He  was  never  conceived 
as  a  real  horse  who  lived  and  died,  nor  as  an  im- 
mortal horse,  ridden  by  a  rider.  We  can  follow 
this  metaphorical  progress  step  by  step.  At  first 
Agni  is  called  '  not  a  horse,'  that  is  swift  like  a  horse, 
but  yet  not  altogether  a  horse  ;  then  he  is  conceived 
as  horse-like,  and  at  last  he  is  praised  as  possessing 
all  the  good  qualities  of  a  horse,  as  being  well 
groomed,  brilliant,  shaking  his  mane,  and  running 
a  race.  Likewise,  if  other  gods,  such  as  Indra,  were 
addressed  as  vrishabha,  or  V7^'shan,  bull,  we  saw  that 
this  could  at  first  have  meant  no  more  than  that 
they  were  strong,  and  full  of  manly  vigour.  True 
some  poets  go  further  and  speak  of  these  bull-like 
gods  as  whetting  their  horns,  but  on  the  other  hand 
vrishan  often  means  no  more  than  strong,  manly  2, 
nay  no  more  than  first  or  best ;  no  more  than  he, 
i.e.  masculine,  by  the  side  of  cow  or  she,  i.e.  feminine. 
In  the  superlative  varshish^a,  lit.  the  greatest  bull, 
all  animal  traces  have  disappeared,  and  it  means  no 
more  than  best.  And  yet  some  very  thoughtful 
scholars  can  bring  themselves  to  discover  in  these 
Yedic   expressions   '  clear   traces    of  that    faith   so 

1  Codrington,  Melanesians,  p.  348. 

2  M.  M.,  S.  B.  E.  xxxii,  p.  138. 
VOL.  I.  P 


2IO  TRUE    ORIGIN    OF    ANIMISM.  [chap. 

characteristic  of  savages  that  there  existed  a  blood 
relationship  between  certain  human  clans  and  certain 
species  of  animals  .  .  .  remnants  of  the  wildest  and 
rawest  essence  of  religion  V  How  much  more  useful 
work  might  be  done  by  explaining  the  Veda  from  the 
Veda  itself,  without'  obscuring  it  first  by  this  kind  of 
light  from  the  Dark  Continent !  What  is  classed  as 
Animism  in  ancient  Aryan  mythology  is  often  no 
more  than  a  poetical  conception  of  nature  which 
enables  the  poet  to  address  sun  and  moon, "rivers 
and  trees,  as  if  they  could  hear  and  understand  his 
words.  Sometimes,  however,  what  is  called  Animism 
is  a  superstition  which,  after  having  recognised  agents 
in  sun  and  moon,  rivers  and  trees,  postulates  on  the 
strength  of  analogy  the  existence  of  agents  or  spirits 
dwelling  in  other  parts  of  nature  also,  haunting  our 
houses,  bringing  misfortunes  upon  us,  though  some- 
times conferring  blessings  also.  These  ghosts  are 
often  mixed  up  with  the  spirits  of  the  departed,  and 
form  a  large  chapter  in  the  history  of  ancient  super- 
stitions. 

Shamanism. 

The  various  methods  by  which  such  spirits  can 
either  be  brought  near  or  driven  away,  have 
sometimes,  again  by  an  ill-defined  name,  been 
called  Shamanism2,  and  this  Shamanism  also  has 
been  supposed  to  have  left  traces  in  the  Veda. 
Such  traces,  however,  are  very  scant,  and  they 
could  easily  be  matched  by  superstitions  prevalent 
among   ourselves,    though    proving    by   no    means 

1  Oldenberg  in  the  Deutsche  Kundschau,  1895,  p.  205. 

2  Shaman  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Buddhist  Samana, 
priest,  the  Sanskrit  Sramawa.  We  have  as  yet  no  really  scientific 
treatment  of  Shamanism,  and  hence  no  real  definition  of  it. 


Il]  SHAMANISM.  211 

that  either  we  ourselves,  or  the  ancient  Aryas  before 
their  separation,  passed  through  an  animistic 
period,'  and  through  a  period  of  sharnanistic 
faith  in  ghosts  or  kobolds.  It  would  be  strange 
indeed,  if  something  like  sharnanistic  or  animistic 
ideas  were  altogether  absent  in  the  Veda,  but  as  to 
their  forming  anything  like  a  complete  background 
of  Vedic  mythology,  all  I  can  say  is  that  I  cannot 
see  it,  and  it  has  certainly  never  been  rendered 
visible  by  any  Vedic  scholar. 

I  say  once  more,  there  is  no  harm  in  all  these 
ethnological  combinations.  Let  us  by  all  means 
consult  the  lower  forms  of  religion  and  mythology, 
as  possibly  they  may  offer  analogies  to  some  features 
in  the  Vedic  religion;  but  to  call  them  primitive,  and 
to  represent  what  we  see  among  the  savages  of  the 
nineteenth  century  as  the  underlying  stratum  of  the 
Veda,  is  surely  no  more  than  the  expression  of  a  fond 
hope,  not  of  a  fact  established  by  scientific  evidence. 
The  danger  here  as  elsewhere  lies  in  excessive 
generalisation.  Even  the  so-called  stone  age,  which 
is  often  postulated  as  the  universal  precursor  of  a 
more  advanced  civilisation,  is  far  from  being  uni- 
versal, and  exhibits  totally  different  features  when 
we  find  it,  either  on  stratified  or  unstratified  soil. 
It  is  the  same  with  what  may  be  called  the  stone 
age  of  the  human  intellect.  In  both  cases  we  must 
learn  to  distinguish. 

Evil  Spirits. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  tracing  a  belief  in  evil, 
unclean,  and  maleficent  spirits,  such  as  abound  in 
the  Atharva-veda,  to  the  same  soil  which  produced 
a  faith  in  good  and  beneficent  spirits.     We  need 

P  2 


212  EVIL    SPIRITS.  [chap. 

not  go  for  them  to  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of 
India,  or  to  the  Blacks  of  Australia.  Some  of  the 
great  Vedic  gods  like  Rudra  and  the  Maruts  often 
assume  a  double  aspect.  They  are  unkind  as  well 
as  kind,  they  cause  diseases  though  they  likewise 
heal  them.  If  Agni,  fire,  is  constantly  invoked  as 
pavaka,  as  the  purifying  god,  and  if  fire l  was  used  in 
many  places  as  a  real  or  imaginary  purifier  for  cattle 
and  men,  as  destroying  pestilence  and  every  kind 
of  disease,  if  it  is  used  so  even  now  in  many  parts 
of  the  world,  the  hostile  powers  which  it  was  meant 
to  destroy,  might  well  assume  the  same  personal  or 
mythological  character  as  Agni  himself  who,  as  the 
devourer  of  raw  flesh,  often  assumes  most  hideous 
forms.  We  have  plenty  of  evil  spirits  in  the  Veda, 
such  as  Vrrtra,  and,  in  the  plural,  Vntras,  Rakshas's, 
Yatudhanas,  Pisa/.as,  &c.  Of  course  nothing  is 
easier  than  to  say  that  they  were  borrowed  from 
the  native  races  of  India,  but  this,  which  was  formerly 
a  very  favourite  expedient,  would  hardly  commend 
itself  now  to  any  serious  scholar 2  excepting  always 
the  cases  where  Dravidian  words  can  actually  be 
discovered  in  Sanskrit.  The  Dasyus  themselves  or 
the  black  natives  of  India 3,  were  represented  as  so 
hideous  that  they  might  have  served  perfectly  well 
as  the  models  of  devils,  without  our  having  to  call 
in  the  actual  devils  whom  they  are  supposed  to 
have  worshipped  and  to  have  made  over  to  the 
Aryas +. 


1  Physical  Eeligion,  p.  284,  'Purification  by  Fire.' 

2  Cf.  Kittel,  a  Tract  on  Sacrifice,  p.  1 5. 
s  M.  M.,  Letter  to  Bunsen,  p.  83  seq. 

4  Atharva-veda  XVIII,  2,  28. 


Il]  THE    FITRIS    OR    ANCESTRAL    SPIRITS.  213 

The  Pitris  or  Ancestral  Spirits,  Pretas. 

If  the  PitWs,  the  souls  of  the  departed,  were 
invoked  for  blessings,  it  is  almost  implied  that  the 
same  spirits  could  also  withhold  such  blessings  or 
inflict  punishment  on  those  who  had  incurred  their 
displeasure  \  Children,  who  know  nothing  of  an- 
cestral or  other  spirits,  are  frightened  by  the  mere 
remembrance  of  those  whom  they  have  seen  dying 
or  in  their  shrouds.  These  are  really  the  Pretas, 
the  departed,  looked  upon  as  corpses,  skeletons,  or 
ghosts,  very  different  from  the  departed,  when  con- 
ceived and  worshipped  as  PitWs,  fathers.  Nervous 
people  see  visions  at  all  times  without  requiring  any 
authority  from  antecedent  or  prehistoric  ages. 

However,  I  say  once  more,  let  us  never  shut  our 
eyes  against  new  evidence,  if  it  can  help  us  to  sepa- 
rate the  multifarious  ingredients  of  mythology  ;  let 
us  get  as  many  parallels  as  we  can,  only  let  us  be 
careful  to  get  trustworthy  evidence,  and  let  us  not 
change  mere  parallels  into  antecedents.  If  there 
are  gods  in  the  Veda  who  have  no  physical  ante- 
cedents, let  us  explain  them  in  any  way  we  can,  but 
if  a  physical  type  is  still  visible,  however  dimly,  it 
ought  always  to  be  considered  first. 

Aryan  Mythology  explained  by  a  Comparison  with 
Semitic  Mythology. 

We  have  now  to  see  what  light  we  may  really 
hope  to  gain  from  a  study  of  the  religions  and 
mythologies  of  non- Aryan  people,  without  confining 

1  Cf.  Rv.  X,  15,  6. 


214  ARYAN    AND    SEMITIC    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

our  attention  to  mere  savages,  for  a  better  apprecia- 
tion of  certain  features  of  the  religion  and  mythology 
of  the  Veda.  Some  of  us  may  still  remember  the 
time  when  it  was  the  fashion  to  explain  Greek 
mythology,  not  indeed  by  the  light  of  Kafir  folklore, 
but  by  a  comparison  with  the  folklore  contained  in 
the  Old  Testament 1. 

A  very  learned  Greek  scholar,  F.  A.  Paley,  de- 
clared that  'it  was  impossible  to  doubt  that 
in  the  garden  of  the  Hesperides  we  have  a  tradition 
of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  the  golden  apples  guarded 
by  a  dragon  being  the  apples  which  the  serpent 
tempted  Eve  to  gather,  or  the  garden  kept  by  an 
angel  with  a  flaming  sword.'  Mr.  Gladstone  seemed 
to  favour  similar  ideas,  ideas  which  at  the  time  of 
Bochart  and  Huet  were  looked  upon  as  beyond  the 
reach  of  reasonable  doubt 2.  Even  now  a  Journal  is 
published  in  France,  Revue  d'Exegese  Mythologique, 
in  which  there  are  learned  articles  on  such  subjects 
as  '  Les  Mythes  d Apollon  et  de  Diana,  expliques 
d'apres  la  Bible.'  It  may  be  called  mere  prejudice 
to  object  to  all  comparison  between  Semitic  and 
Aryan  mythology  and  folklore.  If  there  are  traces 
of  undifferentiated  humanity  to  be  found  among  the 
Kafirs  and  Veddahs  which  lend  themselves  to  com- 
parisons with  Vedic  folklore,  why  should  not  the 
Semitic  nations  also  have  preserved  something  of 
that  common  heirloom  ?  If  all  nations  were  once 
unmitigated  savages,  why  should  nothing  of  what 
we  call  Semitic  date  from  that  antediluvian  period 
of  universal  humanity  or  universal  savagery  ?  The 
late  Professor  Robertson  Smith  has  tried  to  point 

1  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  510.  2  L.  c,  p.   505. 


Il]  AEYAN    AND    SEMITIC    MYTHOLOGY.  21 5 

out  Semitic  customs  that  seem  to  admit  of  comparison 
with  the  customs  of  non-Semitic  savages,  and  though 
some  of  our  best  Semitic  scholars  have  been  slow  in 
accepting  these  identifications,  still,  unless  we  sup- 
pose that  the  Semitic  character  was  so  strong  that  it 
transformed  and  absorbed  all  antecedent  elements, 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said  against  the  principle  which 
he  defended.  It  will  be  useful,  however,  to  search 
not  only  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  likewise  in  the 
Talmudic  literature,  nay  in  Phenician  and  Babylonian 
folklore,  for  traces  of  ante-Semitic  customs  and  super- 
stitions which  might  lend  themselves  for  comparison 
with  Aryan  mythology.  Thus,  if  it  proved  difficult 
to  discover  traces  of  Animism  in  the  Old  Testament, 
it  has  been  rightly  pointed  out  that  Animism  is 
rampant  in  an  ancient  hymn  ascribed  by  St.  Augus- 
tine to  the  Jewish  Church,  the  Benedicite,  which 
still  forms  part  of  our  own  Church  service.  This 
shows,  at  all  events,  the  wonderful  continuity  of 
human  thought  among  Semitic  as  well  as  among 
Aryan  nations. 

No  doubt,  the  results  of  comparisons  between 
Aryan  and  Semitic  mythology  have  hitherto  been 
small  and  disappointing.  It  is  often  said  that  what 
remains  of  these  labours  is  not  much  more  than  the 
recognition  of  the  original  solar  character  of  Samson, 
and  even  in  this  case  it  is  Aryan  mythology  rather 
that  has  thrown  light  on  Hebrew  mythology,  than 
vice  versa.  As  to  other  comparisons,  such  as  that 
of  Yama  and  Yami  with  Adam  and  Eve,  though 
tempting  at  first  sight,  I  shall  have  to  explain  after- 
wards why  it  can  no  longer  be  considered  tenable. 
Some  other  comparisons  between  Greek  and  Semitic 
names  of  gods  and  heroes  lately  put  forward  with 


2l6  ARYAN    AND    SEMITIC    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

wonderful  sang  froid,  really  take  away  one's  breath, 
when  one  remembers  how  carefully  comparisons  be- 
tween Greek  and  Sanskrit  names  have  been  worked 
out,  and  have  yet  failed  to  satisfy  the  conscience  of 
many  a  classical  scholar. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  the  same  scholars  who 
express  the  gravest  doubts  as  to  the  phonetic  simi- 
larity of  names  such  as  Varuwa  and  Ouranos,  are 
satisfied  with  the  vaguest  similarities  when  they 
compare  Semitic  and  Aryan  names,  without  even 
attempting  anything  like  a  scientific  etymological 
analysis. 

M.  Victor  Barard,  for  instance,  in  his  Essai  de 
methode  en  mythologie  Grecque,  after  trying  to  show 
that  certain  Arkadian  gods  were  borrowed  from 
Semitic  sources,  throws  out  the  hint :  '  Presque  tout 
l'Olympe  grec  est  peut-etre  d'origine  semitique.' 
This  is  a  bold  peut-6tre,  particularly  when  we 
examine  the  fragmentary  evidence  adduced  in  sup- 
port of  it.  Astynorne,  we  are  told,  may  stand  for 
the  Semitic  Ast  Naama,  Orchomenos  and  Erigone 
for  Erek  Hagim,  Chalcis  for  Kart,  Pelasgos  for  Peleg, 
and  Aphrodite  for  Ashtoret.  We  are  told  that  ma- 
chanah  is  the  Phenician  name  for  camp,  and  that 
therefore  Mvktjvou,  Mtjkcovt],  Mvkojvos,  Miywviov,  &c, 
must  all  be  accepted  as  corruptions  of  this  Phenician 
machanah.  It  is  impossible  to  refute  such  assertions, 
because  there  is  really  no  evidence  to  lay  hold  of 
and  to  examine.  We  have  guesses  and  assertions 
and  nothing  else.  In  the  case  of  Aphrodite  it  has 
never  been  denied  that  her  later  character  was  in- 
fluenced by  the  worship  paid  to  and  the  legends  told 
of  the  Semitic  goddess  of  love.  But  few  Greek 
scholars  could  be  persuaded  that  the  name  of  Aphro- 


II J  ARYAN    AND    SEMITIC    MYTHOLOGY.  217 

dite  was  a  Greek  failure  to  pronounce  Ashtoret,  and 
that  the  Greeks  had  no  goddess  of  beauty  and  love, 
no  Greek  Charis,  no  Aphrogeneia,  no  Anadyomene, 
no  Enalia,  no  Ourania,  no  Aglaia,  before  they  heard 
of  the  Kypris,  the  Kythereia,  the  Paphla,  or  the 
Pandemos,  and  were  induced  to  recognise  in  the 
misshapen  statues  of  Ishtar,  and  in  her  licentious 
worship,  something  akin  to  their  old  goddess  Charis, 
the  daughter  of  Zeus  and  Harmonia.  How  Semitic 
scholars  would  rejoice  if  they  could  produce  at  least 
one  equation  such  as  Aphrodite  =  Sk.  Abhrad-ita, 
i.  e.  come  forth  from  the  cloud  ;  yet  no  Sanskrit 
scholar  would  even  listen  now  to  such  a  comparison. 

Dionysos  and  Semele. 

So  long  as  there  seemed  to  be  some  ground  for 
supposing  that  the  Aryan  words  for  wine  were 
derived  from  a  Semitic  language,  there  was  some 
excuse  for  looking  to  a  Semitic  language  for  an 
explanation  of  the  name  of  Dionysos  or  his  mother 
Semele.  But  now  that  the  evidence  points  clearly 
to  an  Aryan  origin  of  olvos  and  vinum,  even  that 
excuse  is  gone.  We  are  told,  nevertheless,  that 
because  a  Phenician  inscription  has  been  found  in 
a  bay  to  the  West  of  the  Piraeos  \  containing  the 
name  Pen  'Samlath,  the  face  of  'Samlath,  therefore 
Semele,  body  and  soul,  is  a  corruption  of  the  Phe- 
nician 'Samlath.  How  'Samlath  became  Semele  is 
hardly  asked.  No  doubt  it  is  true  that  words 
borrowed  from  foreign  languages  are  liable  to  very 
capricious  changes.     But  there  is  method  even  in 


1  Hibbert  Lectures,  Snyce,  p.  54. 


2l8  DIONYSOS    AND    SEMELE.  [chap. 

caprice,  as  has  been  shown  by  Weisse,  Saalfeld, 
and  others,  in  treating  of  Greek  words  imported 
ready  made  into  Latin.  Unless  we  follow  the  old 
principle  of  principiis  obsta,  we  shall  soon  drop  back 
into  the  days  when  Jovis  was  derived  from  Jehovah. 
A  Babylonian  origin  has  already  been  assigned  to 
the  name  of  Dionysos.  Mr.  Fox  Talbot  declared 
that  the  name  of  the  Sun  in  Assyrian  theology  was 
Daian-nisi  or  Dian-nisi,  '  the  judge  of  men,'  and 
Mr.  Robert  Brown,  jun.1,  thought  he  could  discover 
in  this  the  original  name  of  Dionysos.  This  con- 
jecture, however,  is  no  longer  accepted  even  by 
Cuneiform  scholars  ;  no  scholar  now,  I  believe, 
approves  of  it. 

The  same  spirit  has  shown  itself  lately  in  a  com- 
parison between  Aryan  mythological  names  occurring 
in  the  Lycian  inscriptions.  Here  not  even  the  gram- 
matical character  of  the  inscriptions  has  as  yet  been 
settled,  and  yet  Canon  Bawlinson  was  bold  enough 
to  see  in  the  word  Lada,  occurring  at  the  beginning 
of  several  Lycian  inscriptions,  a  word  akin  to  the 
English  Lady,  i.  e.  hlafdige.  Nay  of  late  we  have 
been  told  that  the  same  Lada  may  be  connected 
with  Leto  or  Latona,  the  mother  of  Apollon.  Le"to 
is  no  doubt  a  very  troublesome  name,  and  there  are 
various  difficulties  which  we  shall  have  to  examine, 
and  which  have  made  many  scholars  hesitate  to 
connect  it  with  Lat.  latere  or  Greek  \a9  in  Xavddvoi ; 
but  what  are  these  difficulties  -  compared  with  this 


1  Transactions  of  the  Eoyal  Soc.   of  Liter,  viii,   297  ;    The 
Great  Dionysiak  Myth,  ii,  209  (1878). 

2  See  now  Edwin  W.  Fay,  Am.  Journal  of  Philology,  vol. 
xvi,  p.  4. 


Il]  DIONYSOS    AND    SEMELE.  219 

Lycian  etymology  ?  Here  a  strong  protest  is  neces- 
sary indeed,  if  we  do  not  wish  to  slide  back  into  the 
school  of  Bochart. 

That  Semitic  nations,  whether  Phenicians  or 
Babylonians,  or  even  Jews,  have  exercised  an  in- 
fluence on  the  outer  life  of  the  Greeks,  on  their  arts, 
particularly  the  arts  of  building  and  writing,  their 
dress,  their  commercial  customs,  &c,  is  clear  enough, 
but  their  inner  life,  their  familiar  language,  their 
home-grown  religion  and  mythology  developed  un- 
injured by  contact  with  foreign  nations,  and  retained 
so  sharply  marked  a  national  character  that  casual 
foreign  importations,  such  as,  for  instance,  Meli- 
kertes  or  Belos  tell  by  the  very  contrast  their 
barbarian  origin. 

Uncertain  Character  of  Ethnological  Evidence. 

If,  then,  so  little  real  advantage  could  be  derived 
from  a  comparison  of  Aryan  with  Semitic  mythology, 
as  little  as  of  Aryan  with  Semitic  languages,  have 
we  any  right  to  expect  a  richer  harvest  from  a  com- 
parison of  the  Greeks  with  illiterate  races,  such  as 
the  Kafirs,  or  Yeddahs,  or  the  Mincoupies  ? 

I  say  all  this,  not  as  an  opponent  on  principle, 
but  rather  as  a  former  believer,  who  by  sad  ex- 
perience has  come  to  the  conviction  that  the  evidence 
derived  even  from  the  most  careful  observers  of 
savage  tribes,  and  their  mythology  or  religion, 
cannot  be  used  whether  for  far-reaching  theories, 
or  for  minute  comparisons  1. 

1  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Religion,  p.  248.  On  Poly- 
nesian Mythology,  p.  273  ;  Mythology  among  the  Hottentots; 
India,  p.  150. 


220  ETHNOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  [chap. 

There  are  certain  mythological  ideas,  such  as  the 
Deluge,  for  instance,  which  by  their  very  recurrence 
among  many  and  widely  separated  nations  show 
that  they  did  not  arise  from  some  isolated  historical 
fact,  as  even  Huxley  seemed  to  imagine,  but  that 
they  express  physical  phenomena  which  occur  and 
recur  regularly  ever  year  and  all  over  the 
globe  l. 

Again,  the  conception  of  Heaven  and  Earth  as  a 
married  couple,  their  separation  and  reconciliation 2, 
all  this  assumes  no  doubt  a  clearer  aspect  when  we 
see  it  repeated  in  ever  so  many  ways  by  Polynesian 
Islanders,  by  Vedic  poets,  by  Egyptian  artists,  and 
by  Greek  philosophers.  But  if  comparative  myco- 
logists move  in  fear  and  trembling  on  the  thin  and 
often  most  dangerous  ice  of  Vedic  and  Homeric 
texts,  it  may  easily  be  imagined  what  their  feelings 
must  be  when  they  are  asked  to  take  their  stand 
on  the  quicksands  of  Polynesian,  African,  or  American 
folklore.  The  result  has  been  that  though  students 
are  interested  in  the  strange  fables  collected  from 
among  the  lowest  and  most  uncivilised  of  human 
beings,  no  true  scholar  would  accept  any  comparison 
between  them  and  the  folklore  of  the  Vedas  or 
Homer  as  really  authoritative  until  fully  demon- 
strated on  both  sides.  This  general  feeling  among 
scholars  has  been  well  expressed  by  Dr.  Dahlmann 
in  his  excellent  work  on  the  Mahabharata  (p.  96) : — 

'  Is  it  really  necessary,'  he  asks, '  to  ascribe  all  the 
customs  and  all  the  abominations  of  savages  to  the 

1  India,  pp.  133-9.  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Religion, 
p.  256  ;  F.  Andree,  Flutsagen. 

2  India,  p.  150. 


n]  ETHNOLOGICAL    EVIDENCE.  221 

dawn  of  civilisation,  as  if  no  civilised  race  could  have 
risen  to  its  higher  morality  without  beginning  with 
the  vilest  aberrations  ? ' 

Tapas. 

Let  us  take  one  or  two  more  instances.  There 
is  a  very  difficult  word  in  the  Veda,  namely,  tapas. 
It  means  heat,  fervour,  afterwards  austerity,  brood- 
ing, and  meditation.  But  how  can  these  meanings 
be  held  together  1  ? 

Many  explanations  have  been  put  forward  more 
or  less  tentatively,  for  it  requires  a  considerable 
amount  of  ignorance  to  speak  positively  on  such 
a  question  as  the  development  of  the  meanings  of 
words  in  the  minds  of  ancient  people. 

The  excellent  Dictionary  edited  by  Boehtlingk  and 
Roth  gives  the  meanings  of  tapas  in  the  following 
order  :  '  heat,  warmth,  glow,  pain,  wailing,  voluntarily 
accepted  suffering,  self-torture,  ascetic  exercises, 
whether  consisting  in  abstinence  or  painful  prac- 
tices ;  lastly,  absorption  in  the  invisible,  self-con- 
templation.' 

This  is  a  fair  account  of  the  different  meanings  of 
tapas,  yet  it  is  not  easy  to  see  the  transition  from 
heat  and  pain  to  absorption  in  the  infinite,  nor  is 
it  always  clear  which  of  these  meanings  is  applicable 
to  the  passage  in  which  the  word  occurs.  When 
Brahman  is  said  to  have  performed  tapas  in  creating 
the  world,  I  thought  that  the  nearest  approach  to 
the  meaning  of  tapas  was  what  we  call  brooding, 
a  wrord  which  includes  both  the  meaning  of  heat 
and  of  thought.     I  was  called  hard  names  for  this 

1  See  Brahmavadin,  vol.  i,  No.  9. 


222  TAPAS.  [CHAP. 

translation  by  an  American  scholar,  but  I  see  now 
that  it  is  very  widely  adopted.  Deussen  has 
accepted  it  as  Bruthitze  (Allgem.  Gesch.  der  Philo- 
sophic, i,  182);  and  Hopkins  approves  of  it  as  apt 
(Rel.  of  India,  p.  222).  But  a  new  proposal  has  now 
been  made  by  Prof.  Oldenberg.  He  appeals  to  the 
so-called  Shamans,  who  by  means  of  violent  exer- 
cises work  themselves  into  a  state  of  heat  and 
mental  excitement,  sometimes  fearful  to  behold,  and 
who,  while  in  this  state  of  violent  perspiration 
(tapas),  and,  as  they  imagine,  inspiration,  utter  all 
kinds  of  oracles  supposed  to  have  been  communi- 
cated to  them  by  a  higher  power.  This  conjecture, 
like  most  of  Prof.  Oldenberg's  conjectures,  is  very 
ingenious,  and  as  it  refers  to  a  period  in  the  growth 
of  the  Indian  mind  of  which  we  possess  no  direct 
knowledge  whatever,  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  disprove  it.  All  we  can  say  is,  that 
even  though  he  might  appeal  to  such  late  hymns  as 
Rig-veda  X,  136,  there  is  in  the  Veda  very  little 
evidence  of  the  tapasa  or  ascetic  indulging  in  the 
violent  orgiastic  performances  of  Shaman  sorcerers, 
or  Indian  medicine-men. 

The  Indian  ascetic,  as  a  rule,  suffers  quietly  and 
resignedly,  and  perspiration  with  him  is  never  men- 
tioned as  a  sign  of  inspiration.  If  we  must  compare 
savage  customs,  the  idea  of  some  of  the  Polynesian 
islanders  that  a  man  possessed  of  man  a,  the  divine 
spirit,  is  sako,  i.  e.  hot,  would  seem  to  come  much 
nearer  to  the  Vedic  tapas  than  the  orgiastic  per- 
spiration of  Indian  medicine-men1.  As  to  'any  magic 
power  of  this  tapas  dwelling  as  a  mystical  substance 

1  Codrington,  Melanesians,  p.  191. 


II  ]  TAPAS.  223 

or  as  a  fluid  in  the  body '  (pp.  403,  40S),  I  remember 
no  allusion  whatever  to  any  such  ideas  in  any  Vedic 
text,  I  do  not  even  know  a  word  that  could  fairly 
be  translated  by  fluid.  What  we  find  are  the  ideas 
of  restraint,  of  purification  and  sanctification,  the 
belief  in  a  mystic  power  derived  from  the  initiation 
contained  in  the  Diksha  ceremony,  but  nothing  in 
the  shape  of  a  material  fluid,  mystic,  electric,  or 
otherwise.  To  speak,  therefore,  of  'the  orgiastic  per- 
formances of  the  ancient  Vedic  world — still  confined 
to  the  raw  forms  of  the  system  of  savage  medicine- 
men'  (p.  406) — seems  to  me  to  go  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  our  evidence,  and  Prof.  Oklenberg  him- 
self is  obliged  to  admit  that  the  Vedic  sacrificial 
cult  has  on  the  whole  kept  clear  of  these  possessed 
miracle-mongers. 

Tapasvin. 

It  would  seem  as  if  Prof.  Oldenberg  had  derived 
his  idea  of  the  tapasvin  or  the  Indian  Shamans  from 
modern  rather  than  from  ancient  literature.  Even 
in  the  Bhagavadgita  the  terrible  penances  under- 
gone by  these  tapasvins,  though  they  must  have 
existed,  were  still  looked  upon  as  unauthorised  and 
as  reprehensible.  Thus  we  read,  VII,  5-6  :  '  They 
who  perforin  fearful  penances,  not  prescribed  by 
the  >Sastras,  who  are  full  of  pride  and  selfishness, 
possessed  by  desires  and  passions,  who  thought- 
lessly torment  all  the  senses  of  their  body,  and  me 
in  their  body,  know  them  to  be  of  devilish  resolves.' 

The  real  tapas,  on  the  contrary,  is  described  as 
consisting  in  kindness,  gentleness,  silence,  self- 
restraint,  and  purity  of  thought.  I  should  take  the 
growth  of  the  meanings  of  tapas  to  begin  with  heat, 


224  TAPASVIN.  [cHAP. 

more  particularly  animal  heat,  which,  when  ascribed 
to  Brahman,  came  to  mean  the  generative  heat  or 
the  desire  for  the  creation  of  the  world.  This  heat 
in  a  human  being  would  mean  at  first  warmth,  then 
energy,  enthusiasm,  bodily  and  mental  glow,  and 
then,  according  to  Indian  ideas,  mental  absorption, 
concentrative  and  meditative.  Thus  aikagryam,  i.e. 
concentration  of  the  mind  and  the  senses,  is  called 
paramam  tapas,  the  highest  tapas.  This  restraint 
of  the  senses  and  of  the  mind,  which  was  at  first 
a  means  only  to  an  end,  became  afterwards  itself 
the  chief  end,  and  hence  the  violent  self-inflicted 
tortures  of  the  later  tapas vins,  whose  tapas  was 
neither  warmth  nor  light,  but  simply  the  most 
intense  and  frightful  suffering. 

Seeing  Visions. 

If  then  we  meet  in  Vedic  literature  with  such 
simple  rules  as  that  a  pupil,  when  learning  a  sacred 
text,  should  keep  silence  and  keep  his  eyes  closed, 
why  should  we  interpret  this  as  a  proof  that  the 
pupil  was  afraid  of  seeing  terrible  visions  (p.  416), 
while  merely  a  wish  to  avoid  any  external  dis- 
turbance or  to  produce  aikagryam  would  amply 
suffice  to  account  for  precautions  which  we  meet  with 
everywhere,  precautions  which  were  prescribed  by 
the  Pythagoreans,  nay,  which  every  Roman  observed 
when  covering  his  head  with  the  toga  while  engaged 
in  prayer.  Of  course  it  may  be  said  that  all  these 
were  survivals  of  a  previous  period  of  savagery,  but 
this  terror  of  the  gods,  particularly  of  Rudra,  does 
not  seem  to  me  to  have  been  a  very  prominent 
feature  in  the  religion  of  the  Vedic  people.  People 
may  persuade  themselves  that  low  as  the  civilisation 


Il]  SEEING    VISIONS.  225 

of  the  Vedic  people  was,  it  is  possible,  nay,  it  is 
necessary  to  admit  that  it  was  preceded  by  a  still 
lower  phase,  thus  going  on  ad  infinitum.  But 
why  these  earlier  stages  should  have  been  at  all 
like  what  we  see  to-day,  or  what  was  seen  but 
yesterday  among  the  Red  Indians  and  their  medi- 
cine-men, or  among  Tataric  tribes  and  their  Sha- 
mans, has  never  been  explained.  Surely  we  cannot 
admit  anything  like  an  historical  continuity  between 
the  savages  of  North  America  or  any  of  the  savageries 
scattered  all  over  the  world,  and  the  postulated 
savagery  of  the  Seven  Rivers.  There  may  be,  and 
no  doubt  there  are,  certain  analogies,  but  we  must 
guard  here,  as  elsewhere,  against  the  danger  of  mis- 
taking analogies  for  antecedents,  and  fixing  on  an 
explanation  from  without,  instead  of  looking  for 
an  explanation  from  within. 

Prof.  Oldenberg  on  Hindu  Sacrifices. 
Professor  Oldenberg  writes  : — 

'  To  what  times  do  the  ideas  belong  which  influence 
the  Hindu,  who,  wrapped  up  in  dark  skins,  sits 
before  the  sacrifice,  fasts  near  the  magical  fire  till 
he  grows  emaciated,  and  tries  to  produce  internal 
heat  ;  who,  after  the  sacrifice  bathes  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  a  dangerous  supernatural  fluid  (?)  present 
in  the  sacrifice,  cleans  himself  by  water  from  an 
adherent  substance  of  disease  and  a  substance  of 
guilt,  and  burns  them  in  the  fire  ;  nay,  who  puts  on 
black  garments  and  kills  black  animals  whenever 
he  desires  that  black  clouds  should  cover  the  sky; 
who  throws  herbs  into  the  water  in  order  to  produce 
streams  of  rain  to  fertilise  his  meadows  ?  All  this 
is  not  Indian,  nor  is  it  even  Indo-European.  The 
African  negro,  the  Australian,  the  American  Indian 

VOL.  1.  Q 


226       PKOF.    OLDENBERG    ON    HINDU    SACRIFICES,    [chap. 

do  often,  in  the  most  striking  conformity,  exactly 
the  same.' 

I  ask,  What  can  be  the  meaning  of  this  ?  Why 
is  this,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  description  of 
an  ancient  Vedic  ceremonial,  said  to  be  not  Indian, 
nay,  not  even  Indo-European  ?  It  would  surely  be 
as  thoroughly  Indian  as  it  is  thoroughly  negro, 
Australian,  or  American  Indian,  provided  always  that 
exactly  the  same  ceremonial  customs  can  be  proved 
to  exist  among  these  savages.  Why  should  not  the 
Aryas  in  India  in  the  later  Brahmanic  period  have 
developed  puerile  superstitions  similar  to  those  of 
the  negroes,  and  why  should  such  superstitious 
customs  be  less  intelligible  in  India  than  in  Africa  ? 
And  is  it  not  strange  that  most  of  these  absurd  or 
savage  customs  are  clearly  secondary  in  the  Veda, 
and  peculiar  to  the  Brahmawas,  not  to  the  Mantras, 
except  those  of  the  Atharva-veda  ?  I  have  several 
times  tried  to  show  how  the  customs  of  civilised 
races  throw  light  on  those  of  savage  tribes,  nor 
should  I  deny  that  in  some  rare  instances  the 
customs  of  savage  tribes  may  reflect  light  on  the  cus- 
toms of  civilised  races.  All  I  maintain  is  that  we 
must  possess  a  complete  insight  into  the  one  as  well 
as  into  the  other,  before  we  can  hope  that  our  com- 
parisons may  be  of  real  scientific  value.  Our  chief 
difficulty  in  analysing  the  myths  and  customs  of 
savage  tribes  is  always  the  same,  namely,  that  their 
myths  and  customs  have  no  historical  antecedents. 
We  know  the  state  they  have  arrived  at  at  present, 
we  know  the  surface,  but  we  have  neither  tradition 
nor  history  to  help  us  to  understand  their  deepest 
roots  or  motives.     Some  of  the  absurdities  in  the 


Il]  PROF.    OLDENBERG    ON    HINDU    SACRIFICES.      227 

Vedic  ceremonial  can  be  and  have  been  traced  back 
to  misunderstandings  of  some  simple  Vedic  texts, 
while  nothing  of  the  kind  is  possible  among  the 
savages  of  Africa  or  Australia,  or  even  among  the 
Shamans  in  Asia  or  America. 

The  Diksha. 

Let  us  take  another  case.  The  Diksha  has  been 
very  carefully  examined  by  Prof.  Oldenberg,  and 
explained  by  him  as  meant  to  excite  an  ecstatic 
state  which  helps  forward  an  intercourse  with  gods 
or  spirits.  It  may  have  been  so  in  ante -Vedic 
times,  of  which  we  know  nothing  or  very  little,  but 
should  we  therefore  lose  sight  of  what  seems  to  be 
a  much  more  natural  explanation,  and  one  much 
more  in  harmony  with  Indian  ideas,  namely,  that 
this  initiatory  ceremony  was  meant  as  an  act  of 
purification  and  sanctification,  or  like  the  Upana- 
yana,  as  a  symbolical  representation  of  that  new 
birth  1  which  distinguishes  the  three  upper  classes, 
as  fit  for  sacrifice  (yagwiya),  and  secured  to  them  in 
the  post -Vedic  literature  the  name  of  Dvi(/a,  or 
twice-born  ? 

This,  at  least,  is  the  idea  which  the  Brahmans 
themselves — and  they  too  have  a  right  to  be  heard 
when  their  cause  is  pleaded — recognised  in  their 
Diksha  (see  History  of  A.  S.  L.,  1859,  pp.  390-405), 
and  we  should  gain  little  if  we  tried  to  discover, 
with  the  help  of  African  customs,  another  meaning 
hidden  in  these  rites,  or  another  origin  of  the  whole 
ceremony. 

1  '  He  whom  the  priests  initiate  (by  means  of  the  Diksha  cere- 
mony) he  is  made  again  to  be  an  embryo  (he  is  born  again).' 
Aitareya-brahmawa,  Hist,  of  Anc.  Sanskrit  Lit.,  p.  393. 

Q  2 


228  PANCAKE    TOSSING.  [chap. 

Pancake  Tossing. 

When  reading  how,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  Vedic 
winter  season  sacrifice  about  Christmas,  pancakes 
were  thrown  into  the  air  and  caught  again,  then 
hung  up  in  two  baskets  at  the  ends  of  a  beam  as  an 
offering  to  Rudra  Tryambaka,  what  would  be  more 
natural  than  to  compare  this  proceeding  with  the 
well-known  old  and  still-existing  custom  at  West- 
minster School,  where,  on  Shrove  Tuesday,  the  cook 
has  to  toss  a  pancake  into  the  air  so  as  to  clear  the 
beam  in  the  roof,  and  catch  it  again,  before  it  is 
eaten  by  the  boys  ?  But  with  all  this,  the  reason 
why,  the  one  thing  that  really  interests  us,  remains 
here  also  as  dark  as  in  the  case  of  Maoris  or  Min- 
coupies.  I  doubt  whether  there  is  a  single  Vedic  or 
even  Aryan  custom  the  secret  springs  of  which  have 
been  successfully  unearthed  in  Africa  or  America, 
because  they  could  not  be  found  nearer  home.  If 
Prof.  Oldenberg  (p.  5  5)  maintains  that  '  in  a  hundred 
cases  what  as  an  ancient  and  petrified  survival  is 
difficult  to  understand  in  the  Veda  has  been  rendered 
intelligible  when  found  among  Naturvolker,  where 
it  had  retained  its  living  significance,'  I  can  only  say 
that  we  ought  to  have  these  hundred,  nay  even  ten 
cases  fully  described  where  the  Veda  has  received 
such  services  from  savage  races,  as  Prof.  Oldenberg 
himself  has  rendered  to  it  by  his  independent,  patient 
interpretations,  based  on  a  careful  comparison  of 
scattered  passages  of  Vedic  hymns.  Nor  must  we 
forget  that  even  in  cases  where  motives  of  Aryan 
customs  have  been  discovered  among  lower  savages, 
the  number  of  motives  that  can  be  supplied  from 
the  rich  treasury  of  ancient  and  barbarous  customs 


n]  PANCAKE    TOSSING.  229 

is  so  large  that  it  is  often  hard  to  say  which  should  be 
chosen.  For  instance,  when  in  India  a  student  is 
ordered  to  sleep  on  the  earth,  this  may  be  no  doubt 
explained  by  his  fear  of  evil  spirits  which  haunt  his 
bed,  while  when  he  is  forbidden  to  sit  on  the  earth, 
this  may  again  be  ascribed  to  his  fear  of  falling 
under  the  influence  of  the  spirits  of  the  departed,  to 
whom  the  depths  of  the  earth  are  believed  to  belong 
(see  Oldenberg,  p.  417,  11.  1  and  25). 

Who  is  to  help  us  out  of  this  dilemma,  this  real 
embarras  de  richesse,  particularly  when  we  are  told 
that  the  same  fear  of  evil  spirits  was  the  cause  of 
the  young  married  couples  not  sleeping  in  their  bed 
for  three  nights  (p.  465)  ?  On  principle  there  can 
be  no  objection  to  our  pointing  out  such  similarities, 
for,  after  all,  the  negroes  also  are  men.  What  I 
doubt  seriously  is  whether  such  comparisons  possess 
any  practical  utility  as  helping  us  to  a  better  under- 
standing of  Vedic  customs  and  superstitions.  Why 
should  not  the  warning  against  sleeping  on  the 
ground  during  certain  seasons  of  the  year  have 
a  much  simpler  reason,  namely  the  prevalence  of 
snakes  or  insects  during  very  damp  or  very  hot 
parts  of  the  year  %  This  may  seem  a  very  prosaic 
view.  But  if  we  look  for  more  remote  reasons,  we 
run  the  risk  of  obscuring  rather  than  elucidating 
the  character  and  purpose  of  Vedic  rites  by  a 
comparison  with  the  customs  of  so-called  Natur- 
volker  which,  we  must  honestly  admit,  we  under- 
stand even  less  than  those  which  they  are  meant 
to  explain. 

Of  course  there  are  rites  connected  with  the  birth 
of  children  everywhere  ;  in  many  cases  there  are 
festivities   connected   with    the    naming,    the    first 


230  PANCAKE    TOSSING.  [chap. 

feeding,  the  first  tooth,  the  first  hair-cutting1  of 
a  child,  while  the  reaching  the  age  of  manhood  is 
naturally  the  most  important  event  in  a  young 
man's  life,  whether  celebrated  by  the  '  cruel  rite,'  or 
by  the  English  festivities  of  coming  of  age. 

Cruel  Rite. 
However  different  the  stages  of  civilisation  may 
be,  there  must  be  a  common  human  element  in  these 
celebrations,  and  so  there  is,  as  is  clear  from  the  most 
casual  inspection  of  the  Gw'hya-sutras 2.  But  if 
there  is  something  peculiarly  Aryan  or  Indo-Iranian, 
or  even  peculiarly  Indian  and  Brahmanic,  it  is  the 
Upanayana,  the  apprenticing  of  a  boy  to  his  teacher, 
and  I  doubt  very  much  whether  we  should  gain  any- 
thing by  looking  upon  it  as  a  remnant  of  the  puberty 
ceremonies  so  common  among  savage  people,  and 
sometimes  called  the  terrible  rite.  The  Upanayana 
is  the  acceptance  of  a  pupil  by  his  Guru.  We  are  told 
that  the  statutable  age  for  this  ceremony  was  from 
seven  to  eleven  years  of  age,  which  number  was  at 
a  later  time  connected  with  the  number  of  syllables 
in  certain  metres  ;  but  that  it  might  be  postponed  if 
any  necessity  arose.  It  cannot  therefore  be  looked 
upon  as  a  survival  of  the  joyful  or  painful  festivities 
connected  with  the  reaching  of  manhood  or  the 
admission  into  the  clan,  as  prevalent  among  the 
Naturvolker,  wrongly  so  called,  for  they  are  often 
the  most  unnatural  of  nature's  sons.  In  India  it  is 
the  most  quiet  and  solemn  ceremony,  by  which  the 

1  See  an  excellent  treatise  by  Berini,  The  Tonsure  Ceremony, 
Bangkok,  1895. 

2  S.  B.  E.,   vols,  xxix,  xxx,  Eules  of  Vedic  Domestic  Cere- 
monies. 


Il]  CRUEL    RITE.  231 

Guru  or  teacher  becomes  the  spiritual  father  of  his 
pupil  and  undertakes  to  educate  and  teach  him. 
This  education  lasts  till  the  pupil  has  reached  the 
age  of  at  least  sixteen  to  twenty  *.  Then  only  is  he 
allowed  to  marry,  to  light  a  fire  on  his  own  hearth, 
and  thus  to  become  a  householder  (gWhastha),  en- 
joying all  the  rights  of  a  full-grown  man 2.  The 
girdle  with  which  he  was  invested  as  a  pupil,  and 
the  staff  which  was  given  to  him  at  the  time  of  the 
Upanayana,  as  well  as  at  the  time  of  the  Diksha 
(Kaus.-sutras,  59,  27),  had  at  a  later  time  to  be 
thrown  away  into  the  water,  and  to  be  replaced  by 
a  new  one. 

I  believe  that  a  careful  comparison  of  the  Upana- 
yana (beginning  of  the  apprenticeship)  and  the 
Samavartana  (returning  home)  in  Vedic  India  with 
the  so-called  terrible  rite  of  some  of  the  Nature- 
people,  would  bring  out  a  far  larger  number  of 
points  of  difference  than  of  agreement.  If  neverthe- 
less some  scholars  prefer  to  treat  these  Brahmanic 
rites  as  survivals  of  a  more  ancient  custom,  sup- 
posed to  have  existed  in  pre-historic  times  among 
the  Aryas  of  India  also,  as  it  now  exists  among  the 
Blacks  of  Australia,  no  serious  objection  can  be 
raised,  provided  that  care  is  taken  against  such  com- 
parisons leading  to  confusion  of  thought  rather  than 
to  a  clearer  insight. 

The  Agriology  of  the  Future. 

There  may  be  a  brilliant  future  in  store  for  these 
agriological  researches,  as  soon  as  the  Universities 
shall  possess  as  many  and  as  learned  professors  of 

1  Manu  III,  1.  2  M.  M.,  Hist,  of  A.  S.  L.,  p.  204. 


232  THE    AGRIOLOGY    OF    THE    FUTURE.  [chap. 

Hottentot  as  they  now  have  of  Sanskrit.  But  if 
the  translation  of  the  Veda  has  been  declared  by  no 
incompetent  judge  to  be  the  work  reserved  for  the 
next  century,  what  century  will  it  be  when  there 
will  be  scholars  who  know  the  dialects  of  the 
Australian  Blacks  as  we  know  the  dialects  of  Greece  ? 
I  know  there  are  some  excellent  scholars  who  have 
honestly  worked  at  the  languages  of  savage  races, 
and  I  am  the  very  last  person  to  depreciate  their 
labours.  But  let  us  remember  that  they  are  pioneers 
and  stand  almost  alone,  each  in  his  own  department. 
If  then,  after  the  work  carried  on  for  centuries  by 
thousands  and  thousands  of  scholars,  there  is  still 
considerable  uncertainty  about  the  meaning  of  words 
and  of  whole  passages  in  Homer,  if  controversy  is 
still  raging  violently  among  students  of  Greek  as  to 
the  origin  and  true  character  of  certain  Homeric 
deities,  and  of  the  object  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries, 
does  not  the  scholar's  conscience  warn  us  against 
accepting  whatever  in  the  myths  and  customs  of 
the  Zulus  seems  to  suit  our  purpose,  even  on  the 
authority  of  men  who  (like  Dr.  Callaway)  are  honest 
enough  to  warn  us  themselves  against  accepting  their 
account  as  thoroughly  trustworthy  ?  Many  scholars 
hesitate  to  accept  Welcker's  account  of  Greek 
mythology,  but  if  a  traveller  describes  a  custom  or 
a  myth  on  the  authority  of  a  casual  native  informant, 
his  statements  are  accepted  as  trustworthy,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  they  have  never  been  contra- 
dicted. Of  course,  there  are  degrees  of  authority, 
and  we  ought  to  make  a  great  distinction  between 
men  such  as  Castren,  when  describing  the  mythology 
of  the  Fins,  who  possess  a  kind  of  literature,  and 
missionaries  or  lion-hunters  when  giving  an  account 


n]        THE  AGRIOLOGY  OF  THE  FUTURE.       233 

of  the  religion  of  Dahomey.  But  even  in  following- 
scholars  such  as  Castren  or  Lonnrot,  we  should 
always  be  on  our  guard  against  too  rapid  gener- 
alisation. 

The  very  next  chapter  will  show,  I  hope,  that 
I  have  been  by  no  means  prejudiced  against  a  com- 
parative study  of  the  myths  and  customs  of  what 
may  be  called,  if  not  uncivilised,  at  least  half  civilised 
races.  I  have  studied  many  of  them,  and,  as  a  kind 
of  Eirenicon,  I  venture  to  give  a  few  notes  which 
I  made  some  years  ago  when  trying  to  gain  an 
insight  into  the  religion  and  mythology  of  Ugrian 
Tribes,  so  carefully  described  in  the  Journal  of  the 
Societe  Finno-Ougrienne. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   ANALOGICAL    SCHOOL    OF    THE   SCIENCE    OF 
MYTHOLOGY. 

Analogies  between  Aryan  and  Won- Aryan  Mythologies. 

I  have  always  held  that  next  to  a  genealogical 
and  etymological  treatment  of  mythology,  nothing 
is  more  useful  than  an  analogical  treatment,  only 
that  for  such  a  purpose  I  prefer  mythologies  which 
have  been  studied  by  scholars,  not  those  that  have 
been  picked  up  at  random  by  travellers,  often 
ignorant  even  of  the  languages  in  which  these 
myths  grew  up.  I  prefer,  therefore,  for  the  purpose 
of  analogical  treatment,  the  religions  of  Mexico, 
Peru,  or  Central  America  to  that  of  Melanesians 
and  Australians  ;  I  prefer  the  mythology  of  Ugro- 
Finnish  tribes  to  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  Africa. 
I  should  never  attempt,  of  course,  to  derive  the 
beliefs  of  the  Aryas  of  India  and  Greece  from  those 
of  the  Fins  or  the  Incas,  nor  vice  versa  ;  but  I  feel 
deeply  interested  whenever  I  meet  with  similar 
sentiments  and  thoughts  among  races  clearly  uncon- 
nected by  language  or  blood,  and  not  likely  to  have 
been  brought  into  personal  contact  at  least  during 
the  six  thousand  years  which  constitute  what  we 
call  our  history. 


MORDVINIAN    MYTHOLOGY.  235 

Mordvinian  Mythology. 

If  I  select  for  my  purpose  the  as  yet  little  known 
mythology  of  the  Mordvinians,  I  do  so  for  several 
reasons.  I  fully  admit  that  our  knowledge  of  that 
mythology  is  as  yet  imperfect,  as  compared  with 
what  we  know  of  Greek  or  Vedic  mythology.  But 
even  this  has  a  certain  advantage,  because  the  myths 
of  these  Uralic  tribes  have  escaped  anything  like 
a  systematic  treatment.  Besides,  in  studying  Mord- 
vinian myths  and  customs,  we  are  in  the  hands  of 
scholars,  and  there  is  even  a  kind  of  literature  to 
which  these  scholars  can  appeal. 

We  possess  some  documents,  such  as  prayers, 
incantations,  and  proverbs,  in  Mordvinian,  and  we 
have  the  accounts  of  real  scholars  as  to  the  present 
state  of  religion  or  superstition  among  them.  I  have 
put  aside  all  accounts  except  those  that  come  from 
persons  who  possessed  a  knowledge  of  the  Mord- 
vinian language  and  its  dialects.  We  have  an  ad- 
ditional security  in  the  fact  that  their  observations 
were  published  under  the  authority  of  the  Finno- 
Ugrian  Society,  from  whose  Journal  my  information 
is  chiefly  derived. 

Mordvinian  Gods  Solar. 

We  learn  from  the  pages  of  that  Journal,  vol.  v, 
that  the  principal  god  of  the  Mordvinians  was  Chka'i. 
The  word  for  sun  is  chi,  but  even  apart  from  the 
similarity  between  this  and  the  name  of  the  deity, 
the  Mordvines  seem  never  to  have  been  in  doubt  as 
to  the  solar  character  of  Chka'i.  His  eldest  son, 
Inechke-Paz,  is  sometimes  called  Chi-Paz,  and  this 
means  god  of  the  day  or  of  sunlight  (p.  109).     There 


236  MOEDVINIAN    GODS    SOLAE.  [chap. 

is  also  a  goddess  called  Chimavas,  which  means 
mother  of  the  sun  ;  while  Od-koouava  is  the  mother 
of  the  new  moon  (p.  132). 

Erzjanes  and  Mokshanes. 

There  are  dialectic  differences  between  the  two 
divisions  of  the  Mord vines,  the  Erzjanes  and  the 
Mokshanes.  The  Erzjanes,  for  instance,  use  Tchim- 
Paz  instead  of  the  Chkai  of  the  Mokshanes,  but  in 
all  essentials  the  two  may,  at  least  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  be  treated  as  one  and  the 
same. 

Solar  Character  of  their  Religion. 

Mainof  remarks  (p.  1 3)  that  the  first  place  among 
the  objects  worshipped  by  the  Mordvines,  as  by  other 
primitive  people,  belongs  to  the  sun,  sometimes  as 
the  rising  sun  and  life-giving  luminary,  sometimes 
as  the  voracious  fire  which  makes  no  distinction 
between  sinners  and  saints,  but  devours  all  that  it 
meets.  The  Mordvines  say  their  prayers  while 
turning  towards  the  sun,  and  they  believe  that 
Chkai  lives  in  the  sun,  or  is  the  sun.  They  never 
cross  the  sunbeams  that  enter  their  chambers 
through  the  windows,  for  fear  of  treading  on  the 
feet  of  Chkai,  nor  will  they  row  across  the  reflection 
of  the  sun  on  the  river,  for  fear  of  giving  Chkai  a 
blow  with  their  oars. 

Chkai  they  say  (p.  14)  has  large  eyes,  and  sees  all 
that  happens  on  earth  ;  but  as  he  is  very  busy,  and 
as  men  try  hard  to  hide  their  evil  deeds  from  him, 
he  has  to  employ  a  number  of  women  to  look  about 
for  him,  and  to  report  to  him  in  the  evening  all  they 
have  seen  and  heard. 


m]  the  mother  of  wheat.  237 

The  Mother  of  Wheat. 
When  one  of  these  women  happened  to  be  late 
in  reading  her  report,  Chkai  scolded  her,  but  she 
replied  that  she  had  been  kept  back  on  her  way  by 
ever  so  many  hungry  people  whom  she  tried  to  feed, 
yet  she  had  not  been  able  to  satisfy  more  than  '  five 
grains  of  the  sand  of  the  sea.'  Chkai  forgave  her, 
and  she  turned  out  to  be  Narou-ava,  the  mother 
of  wheat. 

Friday  as  Holy-day. 

Another  woman  who,  in  order  to  bake  bread  for 
orphan  children,  had  been  working  all  Friday,  was 
taken  up  in  a  dream  to  the  sun,  and  while  she  was 
nearly  dying  from  the  heat,  and  from  a  piece  of  dough 
she  had  put  into  her  mouth  which  was  growing  so  as 
nearly  to  suffocate  her,  Chkai  looked  out  from  the 
sun,  and  said  that  she  was  being  punished  because 
she  had  baked  bread  for  the  orphans  on  a  Friday. 
She  was  commanded  to  tell  all  the  people  so,  and 
Chkai  promised  that  he  himself  would  take  care  of 
the  orphan  children  after  she  was  dead.  The  woman 
replied  very  disrespectfully  :  '  But  who  will  be  such 
a  fool  as  to  believe  me  ? '  And  therefore  Chkai  put 
his  mark  on  her  forehead,  a  kind  of  blue  and  scarlet 
colour,  which  is  considered  to  bring  luck.  After 
that  the  Mordvine  women  did  not  work  and  pre- 
pare their  dough  on  a  Friday,  and  Friday  was 
thenceforth  called  the  day  of  Narou-ava. 

Earth,  the  Wife  of  the  Sun. 
Whatever  the  origin  of  this  story  may  have  been, 
whether  it  shows  a  Mohammedan  influence  or  not, 
it  can  leave  no  doubt  in  our  mind  that  originally 


238  EARTH,    THE    WIFE    OF    THE    SUN.  [chap. 

Chka'i  was  meant  by  the  Mordvines  for  the  sun. 
Being  the  sun  it  is  natural  that  here,  as  elsewhere, 
the  earth  should  be  his  wife.  And  thus  we  read  in 
one  prayer  (p.  9 1 )  :  '  Chka'i  and  Vediava,  our  father 
and  our  mother,  bless  our  cattle,  bestow  on  it  health, 
growth,  and  fecundity.  Let  neither  wild  beasts  nor 
maladies  injure  it,  may  it  be  tall  like  the  trees  of 
the  forest,  stronger  than  iron,  larger  than  our  house,, 
more  prolific  than  the  fishes.  May  it  be  so  numerous 
that  the  stable  cannot  hold  it.' 

Their  Family. 

Chkai  is  said  to  have  had  eight  children  from  his 
wife  Angue-Patiai,  four  sons  and  four  daughters. 
Though  she  was  the  mother  of  these  children,  Angue- 
Patiai  always  remained  a  virgin  (p.  109).  Sometimes 
it  seems  as  if  there  were  two  Angue-Patiais,  one  the 
youthful  virgin,  the  other  the  kind-hearted  mother. 
Dwelling  invisible  in  the  sky,  where  she  spins  the 
thread  of  each  life,  she  sometimes  descends  on  the 
earth,  and  is  seen  as  an  old  woman  in  the  streets, 
come  to  help  mothers  in  their  confinement  (p.  141). 
Kind  though  he  was,  Chkai  never  allowed  his 
supremacy  to  be  questioned.  Once  therefore  when 
his  wife  had  acted  without  consulting  him,  he 
counteracted  all  her  work,  and  when  she  complained, 
he  told  her,  rather  rudely,  that  she  might  be  able  to 
perceive  the  breath  of  an  ox,  but  that  he  could  hear 
the  breath  of  a  chicken. 

God  of  Fire,  the  First  Son. 

The  first  of  their  sons,  Inechke-Paz,  is  almost  the 
ditto  of  his  father,  a  god  of  light,  of  fire,  of  the  sun, 


Ill]  GOD    OF    FIRE,    THE    FIRST    SON.  239 

and  the  sky.  But  he  sends  not  only  light  and 
warmth  on  the  fields,  he  also  sends  warmth  and 
love  into  the  hearts  of  men.  The  whole  world  being 
represented  as  a  bee-hive  of  four  stories,  Inechke- 
Paz  rules  in  the  highest  story,  which  is  inhabited 
by  the  souls  of  the  blessed,  changed  into  stars. 

The  other  Sons. 

The  second  son  was  Ver-nechke-velen-Paz,  god  of 
the  hive  of  the  world.  He  dwells  in  the  second  story 
of  the  great  bee-hive,  which  is  in  fact  our  earth. 

The  third  son  is  Nouziarom-Paz,  god  of  the  night 
and  of  sleep,  sometimes  confounded  with  Mastyr- 
Paz,  the  son  of  his  sister  Nouriamava,  of  whom 
more  hereafter.  As  god  of  the  moon  (masc),  he 
bears  the  name  of  Odkoiioza'is.  In  this  character 
he  receives  his  father,  the  sun,  by  night,  and  lets 
him  go  out  again  by  another  door  in  the  morning. 
He  also  receives  the  souls  of  the  departed  in  order 
to  judge  them.  After  that  he  sends  the  good  to  his 
brother  Inechke-Paz,  keeping  the  bad  with  himself, 
or  sending  them  on  to  Chaitan  (Satan  ?)  This  re- 
minds one  of  the  moon  in  the  Veda  as  the  temporary 
abode  of  the  departed  before  they  reach  the  highest 
perfection. 

The  fourth  son  was  Oultse-Paz  or  Voltse-Paz. 
He  is  the  protector  of  the  flocks,  and  the  giver  of 
increase. 

The  first  daughter,  called  Nechkende-Tevter,  is 
the  goddess  of  the  bees.  Bees  are  considered  by 
the  Mordvines  as  the  most  intelligent  of  insects, 
and  as  endowed  with  prophetic  powers.  Honey  is 
an  essential  article  of  food  among  them.  Nechkende- 
Tevter  became  the  mother  of  Pourguine-Paz,  the 


240  THE    OTHER    SONS.  [chap. 

god  of  lightning,  also  called  Pourgas.  She  became 
his  mother  by  the  mere  look  of  her  father  Chkai. 

The  second  daughter,  Nouriamava-Aparotchi,  is 
the  protectress  of  agriculture.  She  was  assisted  in 
her  work  by  her  brother,  Nouziarom-Paz,  and  on 
awakening  from  a  trance,  she  bore  him  a  son,  Mastyr- 
Paz,  the  god  of  the  earth  and  giver  of  fertility, 
supposed  to  dwell  in  the  centre  of  the  earth.  He  is 
also  the  god  of  the  lower  regions,  where  his  door- 
way is  guarded  by  dogs 1.  To  help  the  departed  to 
drive  these  dogs  away,  a  stick  is  placed  in  the  coffin 
of  every  Mordvinian,  whether  man  or  woman  (p.  75). 

The  third  daughter,  Paksia-Patiai,  goddess  of 
the  meadows,  had  likewise  a  son  whose  father  was 
unknown,  and  who  was  called  Ved-Paz. 

The  fourth  daughter,  Veria-PatiaT,  the  goddess  of 
fruits,  had  a  son  Varma-Paz  -,  god  of  the  air  and 
of  the  winds.     His  father  also  is  unknown. 

This  latter  fact  was  not  considered  at  all  deroga- 
tory to  the  dignity  of  a  god,  as  little  as  it  was  among 
men  and  women  in  Mordvinia.  It  was  not  considered 
a  disgrace  to  an  unmarried  woman  to  have  a  child  ; 
on  the  contrary,  women  who  had  had  a  child  were 
preferred  in  marriage,  as  likely  to  have  children 
hereafter.  Such  children  were  called  blaggai  (p.  102), 
literally  children  of  accidental  meeting,  and  they 
were  highly  esteemed  in  a  family,  because  they 
might  be  the  sons  of  gods  or  spirits. 

Good  and  Evil  Spirits. 
Of    these    spirits    there    were     ever    so    many, 

1  This  reminds  us  of  the  two  dogs  which  in  the  Veda  also 
the  departed  has  to  pass  on  his  way  to  the  Fathers. 

2  Instead  of  Paz  and  Patiai',  the  Mokchanes  often  use  ozks 
and  ozais. 


Ill]  GOOD    AND    EVIL    SPIRITS.  24 1 

particularly  among  the  Erzjanes. ,  They  tell  us  that 
when  Angue-Patiai  saw  that  she  could  not  defend 
the  creation  of  Chka'i  against  the  wiles  of  Chaitan, 
she  took  flint  and  steel  and  every  spark  became  an 
Ozai's  or  a  little  god.  But  Chaitan  also  took  two 
flints  and  the  sparks  which  he  produced  became 
evil  spirits.  In  this  way  the  two  have  been  going 
on  striking  flints  till  the  whole  world  has  become 
full  of  good  and  evil  spirits,  and  there  were  more 
sparks  of  Chaitan  than  of  Angue-Patiai.  Almost 
everything  in  nature  has  its  presiding  spirit.  The 
good  spirits  are  those  of  the  birch  trees,  the  oak 
trees,  the  lime  trees,  the  fir  trees,  of  the  stallions, 
the  mares,  the  swine,  the  sheep,  the  bees,  the  fields, 
the  tools,  &c. 

While  these  smaller  deities  are  especially  popular 
among  the  Erzjanes,  the  Mokshanes  show  great 
respect  to  a  god  of  their  own  called  Soltan,  who, 
though  created  by  Chkai,  is  really  another  Chkai 
himself,  only  in  his  active  capacity.  He  is  engaged 
in  a  constant  fight  against  Chaitan  and  is  called  the 
lord  and  ruler  of  the  world  (Mastyr-Kirdy).  Besides 
him  the  Mokshanes  have  a  number  of  goddesses  of 
their  own,  such  as  Azyrava  (Vediazyrava)  the 
Mistress,  sometimes  the  daughter,  sometimes  the 
wife  of  Chkai,  and  likewise  the  partner  of  his 
locum  tenens.  The  progeny  of  Azyrava  is  numerous, 
and  in  many  cases  their  character  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  children  and  grandchildren  of  Chkai  and 
Angue-Patiai  as  described  before.  We  find  among 
them  the  goddess  of  the  household  (Jourtazyrava), 
the  goddess  of  the  stable  (Koudazyrava),  of  the 
bath,  the  forests,  the  water,  and  rain,  &c.  There 
is  some  confusion,  however,  in  their  case,  for  the 

VOL.  I.  R 


242  GOOD    AND    EVIL    SPIRITS.  [chap. 

goddess  of  the  water  and  the  rain  is  called 
Vediazyrava,  and  this,  as  we  know,  is  only  another 
name  of  Azyrava,  the  mother. 

V6diava  and  the  Egg. 

This  Vediava  [or  Vediazyrava  l~\  has  a  history. 
Once  when  Chkai,  awaking  from  slumber,  stepped  on 
an  egg  and  broke  it,  a  beautiful  woman  rose  from  it 
and  declared  she  was  his  daughter.  Chkai,  how- 
ever, declared  she  was  his  wife,  and  so  she  was. 
She  is  the  same  as  Angue-Patiai,  the  Divine 
mother  and  goddess  of  the  water,  and  it  is  she  who 
in  sending  down  rain  sends  fecundity  also  to  the 
Mordvine  women  (p.  108). 

This  story  is  in  many  respects  like  the  story  told 
in  the  Brahmanas  of  Manu  and  his  daughter  and 
wife  Ic/a.  All  such  stories  have  most  likely  the 
same  origin,  suggested  by  the  fact  that  the  earth 
may  be  considered  as  created  by  the  god  of  heaven, 
and  at  the  same  time  as  owing  her  fertility  to  the 
light  of  the  sun  and  the  rain  of  the  sky. 

Being  the  god  of  light,  Chkai,  like  his  congeners 
in  other  mythologies,  becomes  a  guide  in  darkness, 
in  troubles  and  dangers,  and  likewise,  in  a  moral 
sense,  a  guide  and  help  in  distinguishing  darkness 
and  light,  that  is,  good  and  evil.  Thus  we  read 
(p.  49)  :— 

'  High  god,  great  god,  who  sustainest  us, 
defend  us  everywhere  in  our  troubles.  Guard  us 
against  misfortunes  and  pain,  against  annoying 
adventures,  against  evil  conflicts,  against  the  evil 
eye,  against   any  mischievous    person    or    evil-doer. 

1  Azyrava  means  mistress  (p.  114);  '  Vediazyrava  n'est  autre 
qu'Angue-Patia'i '  (p.  139). 


Ill]  VEDIAVA    AND    THE    EGG.  243 

Against  the  last,  shield  us  thyself.  Stretch  forth 
thy  hand,  raise  up  the  skirt  of  thy  robe  and  cover 
us  and  make  a  hedge  for  our  defence.' 

And  again  (p.  50)  : — 

'  Most  high  god,  most  great  god,  who  sustains 
us,  guard  us  thyself  when  we  are  on  the  road, 
when  we  rise,  when  we  lie  down,  when  we  rest 
by  day  or  sleep  by  night,  god  of  the  evening 
and  the  morning,  guard  us  by  the  light  of 
the  sun  and  the  moon  against  every  man  of  evil 
thought,  against  the  wretch  who  means  mischief; 
guard  us  against  a  wrong  step,  against  a  bad 
adventure ;  in  good  health,  lead  us  back  to  our 
house  and  have  us  in  thy  keeping.  We  pray  to 
you,  fathers,  mothers,  ancestors,  relations,  male  and 
female,  who  are  in  the  holy  world,  pray  to  God  the 
most  holy,  because  we  invoke  your  names.' 

As  the  god  of  spiritual  light  Chkai  is  invoked  by 
the  following  prayer  :  — 

'  0  great  Chkai,  high  Chkai,  here  is  a  round  loaf 
and  a  round  esrg  for  thee  ! 

'  Enlighten  our  sons  !  Enlighten  their  eyes  that 
they  may  see  the  good  and  the  evil  !  Help  that 
their  life  may  be  bright,  that  their  hearts  may  be 
warm  towards  their  wives,  and  the  hearts  of  their 
wives  warm  towards  them,'  &c. 

We  saw  Vediava  or  Vediazyrava  invoked  before 
as  the  wife  of  Chkai.  Is  she  the  same  as  Vedava 
(p.  16),  the  mother  of  the  sun  and  the  goddess  of 
the  water?  She  is  asked  to  send  water  on  the 
earth  and  to  make  the  seeds  grow  everywhere.  Her 
name  is  sometimes  spelt  Vedazyrava,  and  under 
that  name,  supposing  it  is  the  same,  she  is  invoked 
to  bestow  offspring  on  the  people.  Under  the  same 
name  we  find  her  once  more  in  a  prayer  to  be 
recited  at  the  birth  of  a  child  (p.  32) :  '  Vedazyrava, 

R  2 


244  VEDIAVA    AND    THE    EGG.  [chap. 

goddess  of  the  water  .  .  .  Angue-Patia'i,  divine 
mother,  thou  who  once  drewest  forth  thy  children 
like  sparks  from  a  stone,  help  us  that  this  child  may 
be  born  quickly  ! ' 

Whatever  this  goddess  may  have  been  meant  for, 
whether  for  the  goddess  of  the  fertile  earth,  or  for 
the  goddess  that  bestows  fertility  on  the  earth, 
a  kind  of  Demeter,  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the 
original  nature  of  other  gods  and  goddesses,  because 
they  are  still  invoked  as  what  they  were  originally. 
Thus  Viriazyrava,  the  sister  of  Vediazyrava,  is  the 
goddess  of  the  woods,  and  there  are  besides  the  god 
of  the  beech-trees,  Kelou-paz  or  Kelou-ozais,  the 
god  of  the  oak-trees,  Toumo-ozais,  and  the  god  of 
the  lime-trees,  Pekche-ozais.  There  is  Jourtazy- 
rava,  the  goddess  of  the  house  or  of  the  ingle-nook. 
When  a  child  is  born,  a  prayer  is  addressed  to  her 
(p.  54)  :  '  Goddess  of  the  house,  let  this  new-born 
child  live  long  and  happy ! '  And,  '  May  thy  days 
be  as  long  as  this  pillar,  and  the  ring  of  thy  body 
and  thy  soul  be  as  firm  as  the  stone  (of  the  oven).' 


Pourgas  and  Syriava. 

There  is  another  god  Pourgas  or  Pourguine-Paz, 
whose  nature  is  more  difficult  to  determine.  He  is 
invoked  in  a  popular  story  (p.  43)  to  deliver  Syriava, 
and  is  connected  there  with  lightning,  while  in 
another  place  (p.  135)  he  is  implored  not  to  frighten 
his  worshippers  by  his  thunder,  so  that  we  can 
hardly  be  far  wrong  in  recognising  in  him  a  kind  of 
Mordvinian  Indra.  As  to  Syriava,  she  may  or  may 
not  be  identical  with  Syria,  or  Syrja,  who  was  carried 
off  by  Pourgas  to  be  his  wife  (p.  1 1 5). 


mj  kardan-siarhka.  245 

Kardan-siarhka. 

There  is  a  more  mysterious  god,  called  Kardan- 
siarhka  or  Kardas-siarko.  His  name  is  said  to 
mean  '  Hole  of  the  Stable,'  and  there  used  to  be 
formerly  in  every  house  a  small  hole  covered  with 
a  stone  into  which  some  sacred  food  (oz-ondampal) 
was  placed.  Sometimes  this  small  god  is  supposed 
to  dwell  with  Iourtava  in  the  ingle-nook,  sometimes 
under  the  threshold,  so  that  we  cannot  be  very  far 
wrong  in  looking  upon  him  as  a  kind  of  house-god 
or  lar  or  Vastoshpati. 

At  the  end  of  a  prayer  addressed  to  various 
deities  we  read  (p.  23):  '  Honour  to  every  day,  and 
let  us  glorify  every  day  Iourtava,  the  goddess  of 
the  house,  and  let  us  give  oz-ondampal  to  Kardan- 
siarhka  ;  he  is  small,  but  he  does  much,  and  without 
him  we  should  be  as  without  a  head.'  If  the 
Mordvines  go  into  a  new  house,  they  always  invoke 
this  Kardan-siarhka.  '  Protector  of  the  hearth  ! ' 
they  say,  '  a  new  home  has  been  prepared  for  thee, 
get  ready  and  come  with  us  to  the  new  home,  and 
do  thy  work  there.  Here  in  thy  old  place,  where 
all  is  empty,  thou  hast  nothing  more  to  do.'  Some 
anthropologists  might  possibly  see  in  this  stone  and 
the  hole  a  kind  of  fetish,  but  there  seems  to  me 
a  deeper  meaning  in  it  which  cannot  be  disposed  of 
by  a  mere  technical  term. 

Hitherto  all  that  we  have  been  told  about  the 
mythology  and  religion  of  the  Mordvines  has  been 
quite  in  harmony  with  what,  according  to  our  theory 
of  the  origin  of  mythology,  we  should  have  expected. 
The  few  names  preserved  to  us  are  clearly  the 
names  of  the  agents  behind  the  salient  phenomena 


246  KARDAN-SIAEHKA.  [chap. 

of  nature,  in  some  cases  quite  intelligible,  in  others 
easily  restored  to  their  original  meaning.  Heaven, 
sun,  earth,  water,  clouds,  and  thunderstorms  are  the 
theme  of  which  Mordvine  mythology  is  one  varia- 
tion, just  as  Vedic  mythology  is  another,  only  that 
the  latter  has  had  the  good  fortune  of  being 
preserved  in  greater  completeness.  Even  the  fact 
that  some  of  the  ancient  Mordvine  prayers  were 
preserved  orally,  but  in  such  a  state  that,  though 
repeated,  they  could  no  longer  be  understood,  may 
be  matched  by  some  hymns  of  the  Rig-veda  which, 
though  they  sound  all  right,  nevertheless  defy  all 
grammatical  explanation. 

Syria,  the  Dawn. 

It  is  curious  that  the  only  goddess  who  has  become 
the  object  of  a  romantic  legend  is  the  goddess  of 
the  Dawn,  who,  as  we  know,  takes  so  prominent 
a  position  in  the  romantic  mythology  of  India  and 
Greece. 

The  name  of  the  Dawn  is  Syria,  and  we  are  told 
that  she  remained  unmarried  for  many  years,  till  at 
last  she  was  carried  off  by  a  dark  man,  a  stranger, 
who  was  seen  after  a  thunderstorm  walking  about  in 
the  street,  looking  around  with  his  eyes  that  were 
shining  like  sparks.  He  demanded  Syria  from  her 
father,  but  after  having  received  her,  he  behaved 
very  boisterously  at  the  wedding-feast,  and  when 
departing  with  his  bride  he  shouted  like  thunder, 
his  eyes  shone  like  lightning,  and  the  whole  house 
was  set  on  fire.  People  then  discovered  that  the 
bridegroom  was  no  other  than  Pourgas. 

What  is  strange  is  that  here  the  god  who  carries 
off  the   Dawn   is    not  a  solar  deity  in    the   strict 


Ill]  SYRIA,    THE    DAWN.  247 

sense  of  the  word,  but  a  kind  of  Indra,  the  god  of 
the  blue  sky,  but  also  of  the  thunderstorm,  who 
rescues  the  light  from  the  darkness  of  the  clouds. 
How  deeply  this  legend  entered  into  the  ordinary 
phraseology  of  the  people  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
Pourgas  by  his  marriage  with  a  Mordvinian  girl 
is  supposed  to  have  become  a  connection  of  the 
people  at  large.  When,  therefore,  thunder  and 
lightning  become  very  terrible,  the  people  exclaim, 
'  Gently,  gently,  for  thou  art  one  of  ourselves.' 

What  is  most  curious,  however,  about  this  Mord- 
vinian mythology  is  that  there  should  have  been,  as 
if  built  up  on  this  lower  stratum,  a  much  higher 
edifice  of  philosophical  speculation  which  at  first 
sight  would  seem  far  beyond  the  capacities  of  such 
jDeople  as  the  Mordvines  are  now,  and  are  known  to 
have  been  for  the  last  three  hundred  years.  Whether 
this  should  be  explained  by  admitting  a  class  of 
more  highly  gifted  individuals  among  the  Mord- 
vinian shepherds,  or  by  foreign  influences,  the  traces 
of  which  are  clearly  perceptible  in  some  of  the  names 
of  their  gods,  whether  Mohammedan,  Persian,  or 
even  Indian,  is  difficult  to  say.  Mere  analogies  will 
not  help  us  much,  otherwise  we  might  refer  once 
more  to  the  South  Sea  Islands,  where  we  find  by  the 
side  of  the  most  uncouth  myths  and  legends,  some 
purely  metaphysical  speculations,  such  as  divine 
beings  called,  '  The  Root  of  all  existence,'  '  The  very 
Beginning,'  '  Breathing,'  '  Life,'  '  the  Great  Mother  ',' 
&c.  We  might  also  appeal  to  the  Veda  itself,  where 
we  have  a  number  of  hymns,  full  of  the  commonest 

1  See  W.  W.  Gill,  Myths  and  Songs  from  the  South  Pacific, 
p.  2. 


248  SYKIA,    THE    DAWN.  [chap. 

and  most  childish  conceptions,  side  by  side  with 
other  hymns,  passages  of  the  Brahma^as  and  Upani- 
shads,  containing  speculations  of  extreme  meta- 
physical subtlety. 

Mordvinian  Philosophy  and  Religion. 

The  Mordvinian  speculations  on  the  creation  of 
the  world,  and  still  more  on  the  government  of  the 
world  and  the  conflict  between  good  and  evil,  are  so 
full  of  interest  that,  though  they  are  not  mytho- 
logical in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  I  shall  mention 
a  few  of  them  in  this  place  as  showing  the  easy 
transition  from  what  many  would  call  the  ridiculous 
to  the  sublime. 

This  is  what  Mainof  learnt  from  the  Mordvines, 
the  same  Mordvines  who  deposited  bits  of  food  in 
the  hole  in  the  stable  : — 

*  In  the  beginning,'  they  said, '  there  was  nothing  \ 
Chkai  alone,  as  the  Mokshanes,  or  Tchim-Paz,  as  the 
Erzjanes  call  him,  existed   in  the  world.     He  was 


1  One  of  the  Veclic  hymns  begins,    'There  was  then  not 
nothing,  nor  was  there  anything.'     In  the  Edda  we  read  : — 
'  There  was  an  age  when  there  was  nothing, 

Nor  sea  nor  sand,  nor  briny  waves, 

There  was  no  earth,   nor  heaven  above, 

Gaping  abyss,  and  grass  nowhere.' 
And  again  : — 

'  The  earth  was  shaped  from  Ymir's  flesh, 

The  sea  from  his  sweat, 

The  mountain  from  his  bones,  the  trees  from  his  hair, 

The  sky  from  his  skull, 

And  kindly  Asen  made  from  his  eyebrows 

Midgard  for  the  sons  of  man, 

But  from  Ymir's  brain 

The  hardy  clouds  were  shaped.' 
Edda,  iibers.  von  K.  Simrock,  pp.  279,  281. 


Ill]  MORDVINIAN    PHILOSOPHY    AND    RELIGION.        249 

and  he  was  not,  for  no  one  had  ever  seen  him.  He 
felt  tired  being  always  alone.  He  sighed  l  and  his 
sigh  became  the  wind,  he  gnashed  his  teeth  and 
winked  with  his  eye  and  thus  produced  thunder  and 
lightning.  He  could  not  walk  about  because  he 
was  everywhere  2,  and  there  was  no  one  for  him  to 
talk  to.  No  one  has  ever  known  how  Chka'i  appeared 
in  the  world,  for  he  was  before  the  world,  having 
neither  beginning  nor  end.  The  earth,  the  sky,  the 
stars,  the  gods,  men,  animals,  and  even  evil  spirits 
exist  through  him  and  obey  him.  He  is  the  invisible 
creator  of  the  world,  and  he  rules  with  the  help  of 
invisible  deities,  who  are  his  servants. 

'  Hence  all  prayers  begin  with  an  address  to  him, 
and  after  that  only,  to  the  other  gods.  Chka'i  is 
kindness  itself,  he  loves  all  he  has  created,  and  wishes 
that  the  whole  world  should  be  happy.  He  is 
omnipotent,  and  yet  he  is  unable  to  do  any  wrong, 
for  any  wrong  done  by  him  would  at  once  turn  to 
good.  Once  being  angry  with  a  Mordvinian,  he 
burnt  his  house,  but  when  the  man  came  to  cart  the 
cinders  away  he  found  six  barrels  full  of  gold  pieces. 
Thus  Chkai's  punishments  always  turn  to  blessings. 

'  But  in  order  that  people  should  be  reminded  to 
lead  a  virtuous  life,  Chka'i  allowed  Chaitan  to  create 
a  number  of  evil  spirits,  and  whenever  a  man  com- 
mits a  sin,  Chka'i  allows  Chaitan  to  punish  him. 
But  as  soon  as  the  sinner  repents,  Chka'i  comes  back 
to  him  and  sends  away  the  evil  spirit.  Sometimes, 
however,  these  evil  spirits  attack  even  innocent 
people,  and  therefore  on  passing  swamps  and  other 
dangerous  places  one  should  always  pray,  "  Chka'i, 
shepherd  of  men,  be  our  guardian." 

1  CI'.  Brihadarawyaka  I,  1 .  When  the  sacrificial  horse  shakes 
itself,  it  lightens,  when  it  kicks,  it  thunders,  when  it  makes 
water,  it  rains,  voice  is  its  voice. 

2  More  speculative  than  when,  in  Genesis  iii.  7,  the  Lord  is 
spoken  of  as  walking  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day. 


250  CHAITAN    OR    SATAN.  [CHAP. 

Chaitan  or  Satan. 

Now  here  we  see  clearly  the  inroad  of  Moham- 
medan ideas.  It  cannot  be  a  mere  accident  that 
Chaitan  should  be  with  the  Mord vines  the  name  of 
the  evil  spirit.  It  is  evidently  the  Arabic  word 
Shaitan,  the  Hebrew  Satan,  'he  who  opposes.'  The 
Mordvines  call  their  own  evil  spirit  Korych  l,  that 
is,  Owl.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  as  if  they  had 
known  no  evil  spirits  beyond  birds  of  ill-omen  before 
they  became  acquainted  with  Chaitan,  that  they 
believed  in  one  omnipotent  and  omnipresent  God 
only,  and  that  when  they  heard  from  their  Moham- 
medan neighbours  about  the  Devil,  they  adopted 
the  name  and  arranged  a  place  for  Chaitan  as  well 
as  they  could.  Chkai  was  then  supposed  to  have 
created  Chaitan  as  his  first  companion.  Another 
indication  of  the  high  position  which  Chkai  held  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Mordvines  is  that  one  branch  of 
them,  the  Erzjanes,  allow  of  no  sacrifices  for  Chkai, 
while  the  other  branch,  the  Mokshanes,  have  many 
festivities  in  his  honour.  It  is  the  same  with 
Brahman  in  India.  The  Supreme  Brahman  (neut.) 
has  no  temples;  temples  which  are  dedicated  to 
Brahman  are  meant  for  Brahman  (masc). 

Creation  of  the  "World. 

There  is  another  account  current  of  the  creation 
of  the  world  and  of  Chaitan  which  deserves  to  be 
mentioned.  Tchim-paz  or  Chkai  was  alone  floating 
over  the  surface  of  the  waters.      He  spat  on  the 

1  They  also  call  him  Chimarloa  and  Simargla,  a  bird  who  is 
for  ever  sitting  on  the  celestial  apple-tree.  Could  this  be  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  Persian  Simurgh  ? 


Ill]  CREATION    OF    THE    WORLD.  25 1 

water  and  the  spittle  grew  into  a  mountain.  He 
struck  the  mountain  with  his  stick  and  Chaitan 
stepped  out  and  said :  '  Make  me  thy  brother ! ' 
Chka'i  replied,  '  Be  my  comrade,  but  not  my  brother, 
and  let  us  now  create  the  world  together.'  He  then 
ordered  Chaitan  to  plunge  into  the  sea  and  to  fetch 
some  grains  of  sand.  After  some  tricks  played  by 
Chaitan,  he  at  last  brought  up  the  sand,  but  kept 
some  of  it  in  his  mouth.  When  Chkai  had  thrown 
the  sand  upon  the  water,  it  grew  into  the  earth, 
while  the  sand  in  Chaitan's  mouth  swelled  so  rapidly 
that  he  had  to  spit  it  out.  This  caused  the  moun- 
tains, the  valleys,  the  precipices,  and  all  the  uneven- 
ness  of  the  earth1  (p.  117).  Then  Chaitan  was 
cursed  by  Chkai  and  thrown  into  hell,  where  he 
remains  from  age  to  age. 

What  is  curious  in  this  account  is  the  recognition 
of  the  once  stratified  earth  being  disturbed  and 
disrupted  by  Chaitan,  as  representing  the  fire  under 
the  earth,  and  the  still  deeper  thought  that  whatever 
mischief  Chaitan  may  do,  it  must  always  turn  to 
good  in  the  end.  Another  legend  relates  that  even 
Chaitan  will  in  the  end  be  pardoned,  that  Chkai  and 
Chaitan  will  be  reconciled,  and  that  then  the  Mord- 
vines  will  be  happy.  Other  authorities,  however, 
deny  the  possibility  of  a  reconciliation  between  good 
and  evil,  and  represent  Chaitan  as  for  ever  im- 
prisoned in  the  Ermak-kov,  the  mountain  of  money 
in  the  Ural  mountains. 

When  there    is  an  eclipse   people  say  that  the 

1  The  same  story,  as  Krek  assures  us  in  his  Einleitung  in  die 
Slavische  Literaturgeschichte,  p.  278,  forms  the  common 
belief  among  the  Old-believers  (Altglaubige)  in  Eussia  to  the 
present  day,  in  preference  to  that  of  the  0.  T. 


252  CREATION    OF    THE    WORLD.  [chAI>. 

people  of  Cha'itan  surround  Chkai  so  that  they  may 
play  their  tricks  unobserved  (p.  136).  Shooting 
stars  are  called  the  serpent  of  fire  (p.  136).  There 
is  considerable  variety  in  these  legends  about  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  the  constant  fight  between 
Chkai  and  Cha'itan.  Exactly  as  in  the  Avesta, 
whatever  good  Chkai  does,  Chaitan  tries  to  injure 
it.  When  Chkai  had  created  the  clear  sky,  Cha'itan 
covered  it  with  dark  clouds.  Then  Chkai  filled 
them  with  water  and  they  fertilised  the  soil.  Then 
Cha'itan  stole  the  keys  of  the  clouds  from  Vediazy- 
rava,  and  opened  the  sluices,  causing  a  perfect 
deluge.  But  Chkai  turned  the  deluge  into  rivers 
which  proved  a  benefit  to  mankind.  Then  Chaitan 
blew  on  the  waters  so  that  people  were  nearly 
drowned.  But  Chkai  gave  them  boats,  oars,  and 
sails,  and  thus  once  more  brought  good  out  of  evil. 

Creation  of  Man. 

When  Chkai  had  formed  man  from  potter's  clay, 
he  created  his  soul  and  confided  it  to  a  dog  to 
protect  it  against  Chaitan.  Dogs  had  no  hair  then, 
and  when  Cha'itan  had  sent  a  severe  frost  the  dog, 
nearly  dying  of  cold,  showed  Cha'itan  the  soul 
which  Chkai  had  made.  Cha'itan  then  spat  on  it 
and  thus  infected  the  soul  of  man  with  all  the 
diseases  to  which  he  is  heir.  The  dog  was  punished 
with  having  to  wear  the  offensive  fur  of  Chaitan, 
and  hence  the  expression,  '  This  smells  of  dog.'  Then 
Chkai  breathed  a  soul  into  man,  and  man  became 
subject  to  all  the  evils  with  which  Cha'itan  had 
infected  the  soul.  All  that  Chkai  could  do  to  help 
him  was  to  teach  him  the  difference  between  good 
and  evil.     According  to  another  account,  the  first 


Hi]  CKEATION    OF    MAN.  253 

idea  of  creating  man  came  from  Chaitan.  But 
though  he  collected  clay  and  sand  from  seventy- 
seven  different  countries,  he  did  not  succeed.  His 
figures  were  like  swine,  like  dogs,  like  reptiles. 
Instead  of  speaking  they  growled  or  barked.  Then 
he  sent  a  bat  up  to  the  sky  to  build  her  nest  in  the 
towel  of  Chkai',  that  is,  the  Milky  Way.  When  the 
nest  fell  down,  Chaitan  could  reach  the  towel,  and 
by  wiping  his  men  with  it  they  assumed  a  divine 
form.  Then  followed  a  new  struggle  between  Chkai 
and  Chaitan,  and  they  agreed  at  last  that  Chaitan 
should  have  the  body,  but  Chkai  would  retain  the 
form  and  the  soul  of  man.  Thus  while  the  human 
soul  is  in  the  body,  Chaitan  has  command  over  it, 
but  after  death  the  soul  in  its  divine  form  returns 
by  the  towel  of  Chkai  (the  Milky  Way)  to  the 
Creator,  while  the  body  falls  to  dust.  The  bat,  of 
course,  is  punished  by  losing  its  wings  and  having 
a  tail  like  that  of  Chaitan. 

After  Chkai  had  created  a  woman  to  be  a  com- 
panion to  man,  Chaitan  corrupted  her  in  every 
possible  way.  Still  at  first  there  was  a  time  of 
peace  and  happiness  on  earth,  and  Nichke-Paz 
himself  came  down  to  act  as  ruler.  But  Chaitan 
persuaded  an  old  man  to  plant  the  hop,  a  plant 
which  rapidly  spread  everywhere,  and  when  made 
into  beer  caused  drunkenness  and  every  kind  of 
misery  among  the  people.  Then  there  was  a  re- 
bellion against  Nichke-Paz.  He  was  no  longer 
believed  to  be  the  son  of  God,  but  when  he  had 
been  illtreated  and  killed,  he  flew  up  to  heaven,  and 
people  then  perceived  who  he  had  been.  After  his 
disappearance  the  light  of  the  sun  was  diminished, 
and  every  kind  of  evil  fell  upon  the  earth.     Then 


254  CREATION    OF    MAN.  [chap. 

Chkai  advised  the  people  to  have  kings,  princes, 
judges,  and  leaders,  and  their  first  Tsar  was  called 
Tchouvan,  the  proud.  The  last  who  conquered  the 
Mord vines  was  a  stranger  called  Indji,  who  came 
from  beyond  the  Volga  and  tatarised  the  whole 
country. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  recognise  in  this  accumula- 
tion of  legends  traces  of  foreign  influences,  ancient 
and  modern.  The  fight  between  good  and  evil  is  so 
like  that  of  Ormazd  and  Ahriman,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  it  could  have  come  from  anywhere 
but  Persia.  The  Buga  or  Boa  of  the  Tunguses 
may  be  the  Persian  Bhaga  or  the  Russian  Bog',  and 
the  seven  Kudais  of  certain  Turkish  tribes  remind  us 
of  the  Persian  Khodai,  god,  Zend  quadhata,  and  the 
seven  Amshaspands.  The  name  of  Charmazd  occurs 
as  a  name  of  Chkai,  and  among  the  Mongolians  also 
Tegni  (the  same  as  Tengri  ?),  the  divine  father  of 
their  Tschingis-chan,  is  called  Chormusda1.  This 
can  hardly  be  a  mere  accident,  and  considering  the 
striking  similarities  between  the  Mordvine  specula- 
tions on  the  creation  of  the  world  and  of  man,  and 
those  of  the  Vedic  Brahmawas,  even  the  name  of 
Indji  as  that  of  the  conqueror  of  the  Mordvines, 
may  not  be  purely  fortuitous.  On  all  these  points, 
however,  we  must  wait  for  further  information  from 
the  learned  members  of  the  Finno-Ugrian  Society. 
I  am  quite  aware  of  the  risk  I  have  been  running  in 
throwing  out  these  guesses,  and  I  am  quite  ready 
also  to  bear  the  blame,  if  only  others,  better  qualified 
than  myself,  will  carry  on  this  line  of  research  and 
give  us  in  time  a  more  perfect  outline  of  Mordvinian 

1  Castren,  Ethnologische  Vorlesungen,  p.  49. 


Ill]  CREATION    OF    MAN.  255 

mythology,  and  a  more  satisfactory  explanation  of 
its  various  sources. 

Foreign  Influences. 

The  difficulty  at  present  is  that  in  the  legends 
which  are  gathered  on  the  surface  we  cannot  tell 
which  are  ancient  and  which  are  modern,  or  even 
quite  modern.  That  there  are  Christian  influences 
in  some  of  them  cannot  be  doubted,  even  Russian 
influences  are  clear  enough.  Thus  from  a  mere 
similarity  of  sound,  Nichke-Paz,  the  first  ruler  of  men 
and  the  son  of  Chkai,  has  been  mixed  up  with 
St.  Nicolas,  and  we  find  prayers  beginning  with, 
'  0  gracious  Nichke'-Paz  Nicolas,  protect  us  like 
a  good  bee-hive,  preserve  the  bees!'  (pp.  124,  126). 
Jewish  influences  may  possibly  be  detected  in  the 
prohibition  of  pork,  which,  however,  was  explained 
by  a  legend  according  to  which  a  pig  had  once 
saved  the  life  of  a  son  of  Chkai  and  Yeriava  (p.  127). 
After  a  time,  however,  this  prohibition  was  abolished, 
and  Chkai  then  imparted  the  most  delicate  taste  to 
pork.  There  is  even  a  god  of  swine  called  Tavun- 
ozais  (p.  127).  Such  invocations  also  as  '  Tchim-Paz, 
God  Sabaoth'  (p.  1 5),  must  have  come  from  a  Jewish, 
or  possibly  from  a  Christian  source.  If  then  we 
remove  whatever  seems  foreign  to  the  pagan  my- 
thology of  the  Mordvinians,  it  is  clear  that  we 
find  it  exactly  what  we  expected,  the  principal 
phenomena  of  nature  are  represented  by  agents  who 
bear  their  names,  and  these  agents,  or  gods,  are 
invoked  to  grant  what  is  in  their  special  power  to 
grant ;  though  in  the  end  they  are  supposed  to  be 
able  to  grant  every  kind  of  blessing,  and  are  con- 
ceived  as  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  and  as  full  of 


256  FOREIGN    INFLUENCES.  [CHAP. 

love  for  human  beings.  The  speculations  on  the 
struggle  between  good  and  evil,  between  Chka'i 
and  Chaitan,  may  be  of  more  recent  date,  possibly 
borrowed  from  outside,  but  the  position  of  Chkai 
as  the  supreme  God,  as  something  above  all  other 
gods,  may  well  have  been  the  result  of  a  spon- 
taneous development  of  mythological  thought  which 
in  other  countries  also  ascends  from  the  individual 
agents  of  nature  to  a  supreme  god  of  nature,  a 
god  above  all  gods,  and  in  the  end  leads  to  the 
realisation  of  God  in  his  absolute  character.  I  do 
not  think  that  we  found  these  steps  in  the 
mythology  and  religion  of  the  Mord vines  simply 
because  we  looked  for  them.  We  no  doubt  looked 
for  them  from  a  priori  reasons,  but  we  found 
what  we  wanted  because  it  was  there,  not  because 
we  put  it  there.  It  is  true  the  materials  on  which 
we  had  to  work  are  as  yet  very  imperfect,  though 
far  more  perfect  than  in  the  case  of  mere  illiterate 
savages,  and  they  have  to  be  used  with  extreme 
caution  ;  but  in  one  respect  there  is  also  an  advan- 
tage, for  it  is  this  very  imperfection,  this  want  of 
system,  both  in  the  minds  of  the  Mordvines  them- 
selves, and  in  the  minds  of  their  observers,  which 
enables  us  to  see  the  mythological  process  in  its 
spontaneous  and  unchecked  advance  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest  stage. 

Finnish  Mythology. 
It  would  be  of  very  great  importance  if  the 
members  of  the  Finno-Ugrian  Society  would  give 
us  some  more  contributions  on  the  mythology  of 
the  Finno-Ugrian  tribes  scattered  over  Asia  and 
Europe.  These  tribes,  whom  Castren  comprises 
under  the  name  of  Altaic,  others  of  Ural-Altaic,  form 


Ill]  FINNISH    MYTHOLOGY.  257 

five  classes1,  (i)  the  Finnic  or  Finno-Ugric,  (2)  the 
Samoyedic,  (3)  the  Turkic,  (4)  the  Mongolic,  (5)  the 
Tungusic.  The  Ugro-Finnic  class,  to  which  the  Mord- 
vines  belong,  is  divided  again  into  four  branches, 
(1)  the  Ugric  (Ostjakes,  Woguls,  and  Ungars),  (2) 
the  Bulgaric  (Tcheremisses  and  Mord vines),  (3)  the 
Permic  (Permians,  Syryanes,  and  Wotyakes),  (4)  the 
Finnic  (Fins,  Ests,  Laps,  Kareles,  Lives,  and  Wotes). 
Among  all  these  races,  each  possessing  its  own 
dialect  and  its  own  mythology,  the  language  and 
mythology  of  the  Fins  have  received  the  most  ex- 
haustive and  the  most  scholarlike  treatment.  The 
mythology  of  the  Fins  deserves  therefore  our  special 
attention,  as  it  may  help  us  to  see  whether  it  like- 
wise confirms  the  a  priori  theory  with  which  we 
approached  the  Mordvinian  mythology,  and  by 
which  we  shall  have  in  the  end  to  test  the  myth- 
ologies of  the  Aryan  peoples,  more  particularly  that 
of  the  Vedic  Brahmans  and  that  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans. 

In  working  our  way  through  the  mythology  of 
the  Fins  we  have  two  great  advantages,  that 
of  safe  and  truly  scholarly  guides,  and  that  of  trust- 
worthy materials.  But  we  have  to  contend  with 
a  disadvantage  also.  These  trustworthy  materials, 
I  mean  the  literary  documents  of  Finnish  mythology, 
represent  mythological  thought  at  a  much  later  stage 
than  the  Mordvinian  prayers,  whatever  their  rela- 
tive dates  may  be.  The  mythology  of  the  Fins  has 
passed  through  the  process  of  literary  culture,  like 
that  of  the  Greeks  in  the  Homeric  poems.  It  is  no 
longer  in  its  natural,  home-grown,  unsystematised 


1  See  M.  M.,  Natural  Eeligion,  p.  328  seq. 
VOL.  I.  S 


258  FINNISH    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

state,  but  has  been  worked  up  into  a  cycle  of  poetry, 
no  longer  with  the  exclusive  object  of  relating  what 
the  people  believed,  but  with  the  view  to  please  an 
audience.  The  poet  knows  that  a  popular  audience 
wished  for  amusement  rather  than  for  instruction  or 
edification,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  poets  whose 
songs  we  possess  in  the  famous  Finnish  epic  poem, 
the  Kalevala,  allowed  themselves  great  liberty  in 
embellishing  their  story,  in  order  to  raise  the  charac- 
ter of  their  heroes  to  the  level  of  a  new  generation. 
Finnish  mythology  is  no  longer  so  transparent  as 
that  of  the  Mordvines,  its  names  are  often  quite 
unintelligible,  and  yield  little  meaning  even  under 
the  scalpel  of  so  well-informed  and  careful  a  scholar 
as  Castren.  Still,  in  the  end,  I  think  we  shall  see 
that  the  a  priori  theory  with  which  we  started  fits 
the  mythology  of  Finland  also,  just  as  it  fitted  that 
of  the  Mordvines,  nay,  may  be  shown  hereafter  to 
fit  likewise  the  ancient  mythologies  of  India,  Greece, 
and  Italy. 

Castren. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  Castren,  who  is 
the  highest  authority  on  Finnish  mythology,  and 
who  had  no  mythological  theory  of  his  own  to  defend, 
divides  the  Finnish  deities  at  once  into  four  classes, 
(1)  gods  of  the  air  and  the  sky,  (2)  gods  of  the 
waters,  (3)  gods  of  the  earth,  (4)  gods  below  the 
earth.  We  shall  see  that  Yaska,  whose  work  could 
hardly  have  been  known  to  Castren,  adopts  a  very 
similar  division,  dividing  the  gods  of  the  Vedic  my- 
thology into  gods  of  the  sky,  gods  of  the  air,  and 
gods  of  the  earth.  Considering  that  Yaska  also  had 
no  mythological  theory  to  defend,  and  that  he  wrote 


Ill]  CASTREN.  259 

probably  four  hundred  years  B.  c,  the  coincidence  is 
valuable  as  showing  how  self-evident  the  physical 
character  of  the  ancient  deities  must  have  been  to 
every  unprejudiced  student. 

Castren's  work  in  reconstructing  the  ancient 
Finnish  deities  is  a  marvel  of  industry  and  ingenuity. 
It  reminds  one  of  the  work  of  Charles  Newton  and 
his  assistants  in  putting  together  the  broken  stones 
of  the  statue  of  Mausolus. 

There  was  at  first  a  heap  of  broken  marble  lying- 
in  the  British  Museum,  many  hundreds  of  fragments, 
and  these  were  put  together  with  so  much  skill 
that  we  have  now  the  colossal  statue  of  the  Carian 
king,  the  most  perfect  portrait  statue,  exactly  as  it 
was  when  put  up  by  his  widow,  Artemisia. 

Jumala. 

The  first  image  which  Castren's  ingenuity  has 
restored  is  that  of  Jumala,  a  name  which,  though 
originally  that  of  an  individual  deity,  is  used  in  the 
plural  also,  having  assumed  the  meaning  of  god  in 
general,  just  as  Maru,  a  corruption  of  Marut,  the 
storm-god  in  the  Veda,  is  used  by  the  Buddhists  as 
synonymous  with  deva.  Similar  cases  of  the  gods 
of  the  storm  becoming  the  principal  gods,  or  lending 
their  name  to  express  the  idea  of  god  in  general, 
may  be  seen  in  the  first  volume  of  my  Gifford 
Lectures,  '  Physical  Beligion,'  p.  3 1  o  seq. 

When  Jumala  is  invoked  as  an  individual  deity, 
he  is  called  almighty,  blessed,  gracious,  and  holy, 
epithets  which  are  supposed  by  Castren  to  show 
Christian  influences.  That  such  influences  have 
found  their  way  into  the  mythology  of  the  Fins,  as 
we   possess   it,  cannot  be  doubted,   but  it  is  well 

s  2 


260  JUMALA.  [CHAP. 

known  by  this  time  that  such  epithets,  as  well  as 
the  name  of  Creator  (luoja),  are  likewise  found 
where  no  such  influence  could  be  thought  of.  That 
Jumala  himself  is  of  purely  Ugrian  descent  can  best 
be  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  is  known,  not  by  the 
Fins  only,  but  likewise  by  Laps,  Ests,  Syryanes, 
Tcheremisses,  and  even  Samoyedes  '. 

Euhemerists  have  not  been  wanting  who  main- 
tained that  Jumi,  or  Jumo,  was  a  man,  the  ancestor 
of  Fins  and  Laps,  and  that  he  was  worshipped  after 
his  death  as  Jumala.  Lonnrot,  however,  saw  at 
once  that  Jumala  comes  from  the  same  stem  as 
jumu  or  jumaus,  thunder.  Castren  shows  that  la 
is  a  local  suffix,  and  that  the  stem  was  jum,  a  word 
which  the  Samoyedes  used  for  god,  but  which  they 
now  pronounce  num,  meaning  both  sky  and  god. 

Num. 

This  word  meant  originally  sky,  and  is  another 
proof,  if  such  proof  were  wanted,  of  the  almost 
inevitable  worship  of  the  sky  among  primitive  races, 
though  not  simply  as  the  blue  tent  with  sun,  moon, 
and  stars,  but  as  some  active  power,  endowed  with 
volition  and  power  to  act  behind  the  blue  tent, 
and  manifested  in  his  acts,  whether  thunder,  light- 
ning, rain,  snow,  hail,  or  wind,  but  chiefly  light. 
Num,  however,  betrays  a  still  earlier  meaning  than 
sky,  namely  that  of  thunder.  In  the  dialect  of  the 
Kamasses,  it  is  the  regular  word  for  thunder.  It 
would  seem,  therefore  that  while  the  Aryas  in  the 
south  called  the  sky  the  brilliant,  dyaus,  the  Ugrians 
in   the  North   called    it    the   thundering.     Juma-la 


Castren,  Finnische  Mythologie,  p.  n. 


Ill]  NUM.  26l 

meant  the  place  where  Juma  is,  the  place  where 
thunder  is,  that  is  the  sky,  though  not  confined  to 
this  one  manifestation  by  thunder,  but  including 
other  manifestations  such  as  light,  storm,  rain,  snow, 
and  all  the  rest.  From  meaning  sky,  Jumala  came 
to  mean  he  of  the  sky,  and  when  used  in  the  plural, 
it  became  a  predicate,  meaning  heavenly,  divine  ; 
nay,  in  the  end  it  was  used  like  Deus,  as  the  word 
for  God.  Thus  Castren  tells  us  that  when  he  asked 
an  old  Samoyede  sailor  where  Num  dwelt,  he 
pointed  to  the  infinite  expanse  of  the  ocean,  as  for 
the  time  the  abode  of  Num. 

When  there  is  a  thunderstorm,  the  Samoyedes 
say  there  is  a  row  with  Num,  meaning  that  there 
is  thunder  in  the  sky.  Jumala  has  in  fact  passed 
through  exactly  the  same  stages  of  growth  as  tien 
in  Chinese,  tengri  in  Turkish,  chkai  (skai)  in  Mord- 
vinian,  all  meaning,  as  Kowalewsky  shows,  'ciel, 
genie  du  ciel,  divinite,'  and  sometimes  '  esprits  bons 
et  mauvais.' 

In  this  way,  thanks  to  the  researches  of  Lonnrot 
and  Castren,  Jumala  has  been  recovered  as  the 
oldest  god  of  the  Fins  and  their  cognate  tribes. 
But,  as  Castren  remarks,  the  savage  in  his  gropings 
after  the  Infinite  (p.  25)  is  not  satisfied  with  one 
object  of  worship,  such  as  the  sky  ;  '  he  discovers  the 
presence  of  more  than  human  powers  and  of  more 
than  human  agents  in  many  other  places,  in  the 
foaming  waves  of  the  sea,  in  the  devouring  flames 
of  fire,  in  the  earth,  with  its  high  mountains,  its 
dark  forests  and  its  wild  beasts  ;  he  finds  names  for 
them,  nay,  he  soon  feels  himself  dependent  on  them.' 

We  can  hardly  doubt  that  all  these  superhuman 
agents    had    originally   names   assigned    to    them, 


262  NUM.  [CHAP. 

expressive  of  the  objects  through  which  they  were 
manifested,  while  names  of  a  more  general  character, 
such  as  lord,  ruler,  creator,  were  given  at  a  later 
period  to  one  or  all  of  their  gods. 

Ukko. 

It  is  curious,  therefore,  that  the  god  who  was 
formerly  considered  the  highest  and  the  oldest  god 
of  the  Fins  should  be  called  by  the  name  of  Ukko, 
which  means  old,  venerable,  father,  and  that  this  word 
should  occur  as  a  divine  title  of  other  gods,  very 
much  like  Seigneur,  i.  e.  senior.  We  have  Veen  Ukko, 
Ukko  of  the  water,  Kummun  Ukko,  Ukko  of  the 
hills,  Tuonelan  Ukko,  Ukko  of  death.  Correspond- 
ing to  Ukko,  father,  there  is  also  Akka,  or  Eukko, 
mother,  as  in  Mannun  Eukko,  Mother  of  the  Earth, 
&c.  When  we  meet  with  such  a  name  as  Taivahan 
Ukko,  Father  of  the  Sky,  this  might  be  meant  for 
Jumala,  as  well  as  for  Ukko.  And  yet  Ukko  by 
itself  seems  generally  to  be  the  name  of  a  separate 
god,  a  god  different  from  Jumala. 

This  Ukko,  the  old  one,  dwells  in  a  cloud,  in  the 
centre  or  navel  of  the  sky  ;  he  has  to  recover  sun 
and  moon  when  they  have  been  carried  off,  he  is 
well  armed,  wears  a  fiery  shirt,  sometimes  a  fur 
(evidently  the  cloud  as  monstrum  villosum)  ;  the 
rainbow  is  called  the  bow  of  Ukko,  and  lightning  is 
his  sword. 

He  is  in  fact  the  god  of  the  sky  more  particularly 
in  his  active  or  fighting  capacity,  and  so  far  distinct 
from  Jumala.  Names  such  as  thunderer,  neighbour 
of  the  thunder-cloud,  lord  of  the  roaring  cloud, 
speaker  in  the  clouds,  are  often  given  to  Ukko,  and 
in  modern  Finnish   ukko  is  used  as  the  word  for 


Ill]  UKKO.  263 

thunderstorm.  We  can  well  understand  why  Ukko 
was  supposed  to  give  fertility  to  the  fields,  and  to 
stir  up  the  waves  of  the  sea.  Beginning  with  the 
thunderstorm  as  his  proper  domain,  his  power 
extended  from  the  air  to  the  earth  and  the  sea, 
till  at  last  he  was  invoked  for  almost  everything — 
even  for  assisting  at  the  birth  of  children. 

Vanna-issa. 

Among  the  Ests,  Ukko  is  best  known  under  the 
name  of  Vanna-issa,  and  is  actually  raised  to  the 
rank  of  creator. 

We  see,  therefore,  quite  clearly  that,  though 
Ukko  had  much  the  same  origin  as  Jupiter  tonans, 
his  original  name  must  have  been  specially  connected 
with  thunder  and  lightning.  That  name,  however, 
if  it  ever  existed,  has  been  supplanted  by  that  of 
Father,  as  if  instead  of  Jupiter  we  had  in  Latin 
Pater  only  as  the  name  of  the  Fulminator.  In  one 
sense  it  may  be  said  that  Ukko  and  Jumala  are  but 
different  names  for  the  same  power  or  agent.  Still, 
there  is  much  in  a  name,  particularly  with  mytho- 
logical beings,  and  there  evidently  is  a  difference 
between  the  spheres  in  which  either  of  them  was 
supposed  to  act  till  they  both  rose  to  the  position 
of  a  supreme  god. 

Minor  Deities. 

Different  from  these  supreme  gods  are  a  number 
of  local  deities,  each  maintaining  a  certain  inde- 
pendence, and  little  interfered  with  by  either  Jumala 
or  Ukko.  Each  of  these  deities  is  master  in  his 
own  house,  selbstschaltender  Hauswirth,  as  Castren 
expresses  it,  thus  describing  in  other  words  what 


264  MINOR    DEITIES.  [chap. 

I  called  Henotheism  in  the  Veda.  Castren  remarks, 
'  though  Ukko  resides  in  the  sky,  the  sun,  the  moon, 
and  the  stars  go  their  own  way  and  are  invoked  as 
independent  powers,  very  different  in  that  respect 
from  the  Olympian  gods,  who  are  all  subject  to 
Zeus.' 

Some  ancient  authorities  assure  us  that  the 
Finno-Ugrian  races,  in  worshipping  the  sun,  the 
moon,  and  the  stars,  worshipped  in  reality  the  visible, 
though  inanimate  heavenly  bodies.  But  this  seems 
more  than  doubtful,  because  the  very  act  of  wor- 
shipping would  have  changed  their  inanimate  into 
animate  bodies.  As  soon  as  the  ancient  people  said 
'  Dear  Sky,'  or  <£i\e  Zev,  the  sky  had  ceased  to  be 
a  mere  tent.  For  it  is  chiefly  as  active,  as  doing 
either  good  or  evil  to  men,  that  the  sky  could 
acquire  any  interest.  As  soon  as  the  sky  had  been 
recognised  as  the  giver  of  light  and  warmth,  as  the 
author  of  growth  and  of  life,  or  in  his  character  as 
Day,  nay  as  life  itself,  it  was  possible  to  address  not 
it,  but  him  or  her,  as  a  bestower  of  benefits  such  as 
no  mere  mortal  could  bestow. 

Particularly  when,  as  in  Sanskrit,  such  a  name 
as  dyaus  could  be  used  both  for  the  sky,  and  the 
light,  and  the  day  (dyavi  dyavi,  day  by  day),  the 
mythological  metamorphosis  became  as  inevitable  as 
it  is  even  with  modern  poets.  '  The  days  are  ever 
divine,'  Emerson  writes,  '  as  to  the  first  Aryans. 
They  are  of  the  least  pretension,  and  of  the  greatest 
capacity,  of  anything  that  exists,  they  come  and  go 
like  muffled  and  veiled  figures  ;  but  they  say 
nothing ;  and  if  we  do  not  use  the  gifts  they  bring, 
they  carry  them  as  silently  away.'  Why  should  we 
wonder  then  if  the  ancients  spoke  of  each  Dawn  as 


Ill]  MINOR    DEITIES.  265 

the  luck  of  the  day,  as  shaping  the  future1,  or  if 
the  German  proverb  says  '  Morgenstunde  hat  Gold 
im  Munde '  ? 

The  principal  representatives  of  the  more  localised 
phenomena  of  nature  in  the  Finnish  pantheon  are 
Piiiva,  Kuu,  Otava,  Tahti,  that  is,  the  sun,  the 
moon,  the  great  bear,  the  star  (sometimes  the  pole- 
star). 

We  find  among  those  who  describe  the  worship 
of  these  heavenly  bodies  the  same  difference  of 
opinion,  or  rather  the  same  vagueness  of  statement, 
which  we  find  in  Greece,  in  India,  and  almost 
everywhere  where  a  similar  worship  exists.  Some 
authorities  assert  that  the  people  worship  the  actual 
visible  bodies,  others  deny  it,  the  fact  being  that 
here,  as  everywhere  else,  different  classes  of  the 
people  express  themselves  in  different  ways.  It 
should  be  remembered,  however,  that  as  soon  as  the 
Sun  was  invoked,  praised,  and  worshipped,  it  could 
no  longer  have  been  looked  upon  as  a  mere  ball  of 
glowing  fire  or  heated  metal  ;  it  must  have  been 
conceived  as  something  that  can  listen,  that  can  be 
pleased,  honoured,  and  persuaded,  as  something 
human,  and  soon  superhuman.  There  is  no  doubt 
the  same  danger  of  mistaking  the  visible  sun  for  the 
invisible  agent,  as  there  is  in  mistaking  the  eidolon, 
the  image,  for  that  of  which  it  is  the  image,  but  as 
a  rule  we  are  quite  safe  in  saying  that,  whether 
among  the  Fins,  or  among  the  Ests,  the  Mongolians, 
the  Tunguses,  the  Tatars,  the  Ostjakes  and  Woguls, 
wherever  sun,  moon,  or  certain  stars  are  worshiped 

1  Mahyam  bhavyam  vitlushi  kalpayate,  '  May  the  knowing 
Dawn  shape  the  future  for  me.'     See  Weber,  Portenta,  p.  364. 


266  MINOR    DEITIES.  [chap. 

and  honoured  by  sacrifices,  not  the  heavenly  bodies 
themselves,  but  the  agents  behind  them  or  within 
them  are  intended,  nay,  that  among  many  of  them 
the  worship  of  the  sun  or  of  the  sky  has  led  to  the 
worship  of  a  Supreme  God,  no  longer  restricted  to 
any  of  these  abodes.  The  fact  that  the  Fins  know 
of  sons  and  daughters  :  of  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  nay, 
of  their  more  or  less  magnificent  abodes  (p.  59), 
would  by  itself  be  sufficient  to  show  that  they  con- 
ceived the  bearers  of  these  names  as  more  than 
merely  material  objects  (p.  53). 

Children  of  Sun,  Moon,  &o. 

In  some  cases  these  sons  of  sun,  moon,  and  stars 
are  little  more  than  their  parents,  only  in  a  more 
legendary  character.  In  one  case,  however,  the 
epithet  son  of  the  Sun,  Piiivan  poika,  is  intended 
for  the  fire  on  earth.  Fire  in  its  ordinary  character 
is  called  tuli,  but  in  its  divine  character  Panu.  The 
Fins,  like  the  Vedic  poets,  recognised  in  fire  some- 
thing sacred,  and  if  they  did  not  actually  worship 
it,  they  treated  it  with  great  respect,  and  there  is 
one  sentence  in  Georgi's  account  of  the  Tunguses 
which  might  have  been  literally  taken  from  the 
Rig-veda  :  '  Whatever  sacrifice  is  offered  to  the  fire 
is  welcomed  by  the  other  gods,  as  if  it  had  been 
offered  to  them2'  (p.  57). 

Fire  and  the  sun  were  often  considered  as  one 
and  the  same  element,  just  as  in  the  Vedic 
ceremonial  we  saw  the  sun  absorbed  in  the  fire  and 
the  fire  in  the  sun. 

1  The  daughters  are  called  Piiivatar,  Kuutar,  Otavatar,  and 
Tiihetar. 

"  Cf.  Eig-veda  I,  1,  j,  &c. 


Ill]  CHILDREN    OF    SUN,   MOON,   ETC.  267 

All  these  so-called  deities  are  supposed  to  be 
bright  and  kind  and  benevolent  beings,  though 
sometimes  the  damage  done  by  the  sun  to  fields 
and  cattle  is  complained  of.  They  form  a  class  by 
themselves,  between  the  higher  gods  on  one  side 
and  the  mere  spirits  of  nature  on  the  other.  They 
do  not  seem,  however,  to  have  received  a  common 
name,  such  as  Deva  or  Asura  in  Sanskrit. 

Eclipses  of  Moon. 
Eclipses  of  sun  and  moon,  though  but  rarely 
alluded  to,  are  ascribed  to  some  horrible  powers. 
In  some  cases,  however,  the  Kapeet  (plural  of  Kave), 
who  rescue  sun  and  moon  from  their  prison,  are  also 
represented  as  eating  the  moon  (p.  65).  This 
reminds  one  of  the  Vedic  PitWs  ;  and  the  very 
common  expression,  '  the  moon  is  being  eaten,' 
instead  of  '  the  moon  wanes,'  shows  that  such  a 
conception  was  widely  known  and  accepted. 

Koi  (Koit),  the  Dawn. 

There  is  another  deity  belonging  to  this  class, 
namely,  Koi,  the  Dawn,  who  is  actually  called 
Jumala  in  the  sense  of  heavenly  or  divine.  And 
here  we  see  again  how  the  beautiful  apparition 
of  the  Dawn  has  lent  itself  before  all  others  to  a 
legendary  treatment  which  has  almost  too  delicate 
touches  for  a  product  of  a  pagan  age.  Koi,  the 
Dawn  (masc),  and  Ammarik,  the  Gloaming  (fern.), 
are  said  to  have  been  entrusted  by  Vanna-issa,  the 
Old  Father,  with  lighting  and  extinguishing  every 
morning  and  evening  the  torch  of  day.  As  a  reward 
for  their  faithful  services  Vanna-issa  would  allow 
them  to  get  married.     But  they  preferred  to  remain 


268  koi   (koit),   the  dawn.  [CHAP. 

bride  and  bridegroom,  and  Vanna-issa  had  nothing 
more  to  say.  He  allowed  them,  however,  to  meet 
at  midnight  during'  four  weeks  in  summer.  At  that 
time  Ammarik  hands  the  dying  torch  to  Koi,  who 
revives  it  with  his  breath.  Then  follows  a  pressure 
of  the  hands  and  a  kiss,  and  the  blushing  face  of 
Ammarik  is  reflected  in  the  roseate  hue  of  the  sky. 
This  legend  has  been  collected,  not  among  the  Fins, 
but  among  their  nearest  neighbours,  the  Ests,  and 
it  is  just  possible  that  the  collector  may  have 
allowed  himself  to  embellish  the  old  story,  though 
the  story  itself  is  genuine  \ 

Luonnotar. 

The  Fins  know  of  other  maidens  of  the  sky,  the 
Luonnottaret  of  the  air,  or  the  lovely  maidens  of 
the  air.  They  were  the  daughters  of  Ukko,  and 
produced  by  him  by  the  simple  process  of  rubbing 
his  knees.  Another  Luonnotar  is  known  as  Ilmatar, 
the  daughter  of  lima,  the  air,  but  in  fact  a  mere 
repetition  of  lima,  the  air,  the  suffix  tar  being  often 
used  as  a  personifying  suffix,  without  necessarily 
implying  the  relationship  of  parents  and  children. 

Another  Finnish  deity  belonging  to  the  same  class 
is  Uutar  (Udutar),  or  Terhenetar,  both  names  mean- 
ing beings  of  mist  or  fog.  She  is  represented  as 
having  a  fine  sieve,  through  which  the  moisture 
descends  on  the  earth. 

This  may  supply  an  explanation  of  one  of  the 
elements  in  the  myth  of  the  Danaides.  Though 
the    wind    himself  is    not   represented   among  the 

1  Fahlmann,  Verhandl.  der  estnischen  Gesellschaft,  Bk.  i, 
Heft  3,  s.  83  seq. 


Ill]  LUONNOTAR.  269 

deities  of  the  air,  his  daughter  is  introduced  as 
Tuulen  tytar,  a  kind  of  Windsbraut,  representing 
the  wind.  Lastly,  the  South  wind  has  its  repre- 
sentative in  Eteliitar,  from  etelli,  South,  also  called 
Suvetar,  from  suve,  summer,  south. 

Water  Deities. 

The  water  holds  a  prominent  position  among  the 
Fins  and  their  neighbours,  nor  is  there  anything  in 
nature  that  points  more  directly  to  a  supernatural 
origin,  and  is  more  beneficent  in  its  kindness,  more 
terrific  in  its  wrath  than  the  water,  whether  of  the 
rivulets,  the  streams,  the  lakes,  the  ocean,  or  the 
clouds.  Many  springs  and  rivers  are  called  holy, 
and  receive  sacrificial  tributes  to  the  present  day. 
Hence  there  is  a  superstition  that  a  river  may  resent 
being  made  into  a  slave  when  a  new  mill  is  built, 
just  as  the  Romans  thought  that  the  Tiber  was 
offended  when  chained  by  a  bridge  being  thrown 
across.  The  idea  that  the  actual  water  was  ever 
invoked  and  worshipped  can  hardly  be  supported  by 
any  evidence.  Every  invocation  implies  a  hearer, 
every  offering  a  receiver,  and  that  hearer  or  receiver 
was  the  agent,  the  spirit,  or  the  god  of  the  water, 
not  the  water  itself,  as  used  for  drinking  and  wash- 
ing. That  agent  soon  assumed  a  personal  form,  such 
as  the  gods  of  the  water  are  generally  represented 
to  us,  as  bearded  old  men  or  as  beautiful  women, 
living  in  the  water.  The  deity  of  the  water  in 
general  is  called  Ahti  or  Ahto  in  Finnish  ;  Vesi 
also,  the  common  word  for  water,  may  be  used 
instead.  It  is  curious  to  observe  that  this  Ahto  is 
frequently  mixed  up  with  one  of  the  great  heroes 
of  the  Kalevala,  Lemminkiiinen,  so  much   so  that 


270  WATER    DEITIES.  [chap. 

Lonnrot  proposed  to  restrict  the  name  of  Ahto  to 
the  god,  and  that  of  Ahti  to  the  hero,  while  Castren 
(p.  73)  thinks  that  the  two  were  originally  one  and 
the  same  person,  thus  tracing  here  also  epic  or 
heroic  characters  back  to  a  more  primitive  mytho- 
logical stage. 

As  there  is  no  etymology  of  Ahti  in  Finnish, 
Castren  has  proposed  to  look  upon  the  name  as  one 
of  many  that  were  borrowed  by  the  Fins  from  their 
Aryan  neighbours.  But  when  he  says  that  Ahi 
means  sea  in  Vedic  Sanskrit,  this  is  hardly  tenable, 
and  the  identification  of  ahi  with  Old  Norse  Aegir, 
or  A.  S.  eagor,  must  likewise  be  given  up  l.  Ahto's 
wife  is  Wellamo,  represented  as  an  old  woman,  but 
as  kind  and  generous. 

The  local  water-spirits  are  generally  treated  as 
their  children  and  servants.  One  of  them,  Pikku 
mies,  is  represented  as  a  dwarf,  all  clad  in  copper, 
his  shoes  made  of  stone,  his  helmet  solid  rock,  and 
he  is  invoked  not  only  to  drive  fishes  into  the  net, 
but  likewise  to  perform  acts  which  require  the 
strength  of  a  giant.  Though  most  of  the  water- 
spirits  are  of  a  kindly  nature,  some  of  them  are 
mischievous  and  dangerous,  particularly  Turso  or 
Iku-Turso,  the  eternal  Turso,  whose  name  Castren 
derives  from  the  Old  Norse  Thurs. 

Earth  Deities. 

The  next  class  of  deities  are  connected  with  the 
earth.  The  earth  itself  is  worshipped  as  a  goddess, 
under  the  name  of  Maa-ema,  Terra  mater.     This 

1  Mannhardt  formerly  recognised  the  Vedic  Ahi  in  the  Old  Sax. 
Agi,  Old  Norse  Oegir  (not  Aegir),  O.  H.  G.  Aki  and  Uoki,  nay 
even  in  Ecke  and  Eckewart;  Germ.  Mythen,  8,  pp.  81,  90,  n.  3. 


Til]  EARTH    DEITIES.  271 

conception  of  the  earth  as  a  mother  seems  to  us 
natural  enough,  and  yet  the  conception  of  the  ever 
present,  ever-visible  and  tangible  soil  as  a  deity, 
required  a  greater  effort  of  abstraction  than  the 
belief  in  invisible  agents  behind  the  sky  or  the  sea. 
It  would  seem  that  what  is  trampled  under  foot  is 
not  so  easily  worshipped  as  what  is  looked  up  to, 
like  the  sky,  and  yet  we  find  in  ever  so  many 
mythological  religions  the  Earth  as  the  wife  of  the 
bright  Sky,  as  in  the  PWthivi  of  the  Veda,  and  as  in 
Maa-ema,  the  wife  of  Ukko,  the  thunderer  (p.  86) 
The  Earth  is  of  course  an  Akka  (see  before,  p.  262), 
and  her  chief  object  is  to  give  fertility  to  the  fields, 
to  animals,  and  to  men.  There  are  several  minor 
deities  also,  assisting  Mother  Earth  in  her  various 
functions.  Thus  Pellervo  is  the  guardian  spirit  of 
the  ploughed  field  (pello,  gen.,  pellon  is  field), 
Liekkio,  the  patron  of  grass,  &c.  More  important 
than  these  are  the  deities  representative  of  the 
forest,  because  the  earliest  life  of  the  Fins  was  in 
the  forest  rather  than  in  cultivated  fields.  At  the 
head  of  the  forest  spirits,  both  male  and  female, 
stands  old  Tapio,  who  has  many  aliases,  such  as  the 
old  man  of  the  hills,  the  king  of  the  forests,  also 
the  Giver  of  gifts,  the  strong  God,  the  great  Creator. 
His  wife  is  Mielikki,  who  likewise  rejoices  in  many 
names.  They  are  chiefly  implored  by  hunters,  all 
the  wild  animals,  nay,  tame  animals  also,  are  their 
property,  honey  also  and  beer  are  committed  to 
their  care. 

Haltias. 
We  see  in  the  large  number  of  forest  spirits  the 
beginning  of  a  tendency  which  in  the  end  produced 
a  new  class  of  beings,  representatives  of  almost  every 


272  HALTIAS.  [CHAP. 

kind  of  object,  whether  animate  or  inanimate,  that 
could  excite  the  interest  of  the  early  inhabitants  of 
Finland.  These  beings  are  called  haltia,  a  word 
generally  rendered  by  genius.  The  Samoyedes  call 
them  Tadebcjos,  the  Tunguses  Bunis,  the  Mongols 
Tengris,  the  Laps  Saivas.  The  etymology  of  these 
names,  except  that  of  the  tengri,  is  unknown  or 
doubtful.  Tadebcjo  is  connected  with  tadibea,  sor- 
cerer or  Shaman,  and  may  have  meant  the  spirits  at 
the  beck  and  call  of  the  sorcerers.  The  Mono-olian 
name  tengri  is  the  same  as  their  name  for  sky,  which 
became  a  name  for  the  god  of  the  sky,  and  lastly, 
a  general  name  for  gods  or  spirits.  The  Laps  call 
their  spirits  Saiva,  and  speak  of  them  as  swiftly 
moving  and  as  fond  of  living  near  lakes  (pp.  138, 141). 
Their  name,  if  like  many  others  of  Scandinavian 
origin,  might  point  to  Goth,  saivs,  sea,  possibly  to 
Goth,  saivala,  soul. 

Almost  everything  had  its  haltia,  that  is,  almost 
everything  would  be  addressed  as  a  masculine  and 
feminine  instead  of  a  neuter,  almost  everything 
could  be  conceived  as  an  agent,  as  a  facteur.  In 
German  the  mere  fact  of  addressing  any  tiling  in 
nature  by  herr  and  frau,  produces  a  haltia;  for 
instance,  '  frau  erde,  frau  nachtigall,  herr  tag 1.' 
A  stone,  a  house,  a  tree  would  have  its  haltia  as 
soon  as  it  affected  the  interests  of  the  people,  and 
yet  this  haltia  was  not  confined  to  any  individual 
object,  but  presided  over  a  whole  class  or  genus.  It 
is  important  to  observe  that  every  human  individual 
also  had  his  haltia,  just  as  the  Greeks  believed  every 


1  See  Grimm,   Deutsche  Grammatik,  iii,  p.   346  ;  Deutsche 
Mythologie,  p.  617. 


Ill]  HALTIAS.  273 

man  to  have  his  daimon,  or,  as  the  Romans  said,  his 
genius  (p.  171). 

If  a  tree  dies  or  is  cut  down,  its  haltia  remains 
just  the  same,  and  may  then  almost  be  explained  as 
the  idea  or  logos,  as  being  in  each  individual,  and 
yet  independent  of  it.  The  individual  tree,  however, 
soon  became  the  symbol  of  the  haltia,  and,  as  a  kind 
of  idol,  would  receive  worship  and  sacrifice.  Places 
where  such  worship  took  place  were  called  Keremet, 
a  word  that  must  be  old,  considering  over  how  wide 
an  area  it  is  spread,  for  the  Mordvinians  also  call 
such  places  Keraimait 1. 

Most  of  these  haltias  are  kind,  but  there  are  also 
among  the  spirits  of  the  forest  mischievous  beings, 
forest  devils,  such  as  Hiisi  (plur.  Hiidet),  sometimes 
taken  as  the  name  of  an  indigenous  race  dispossessed 
by  the  Fins.    Mene  Hiiteen  means  Go  to  the  devil ! 

Abstract  Deities. 

There  is  one  more  class  of  semi-divine  beings, 
more  intimately  connected  with  human  nature,  such 
as  Sukkamieli,  fern.,  invoked  to  kindle  love  in  the 
heart  of  men  or  women,  also  called  Lempo,  the  god 
of  love.  Then  there  is  Uni,  the  god  of  sleep ; 
Untamo,  the  god  of  dreams  ;  Munnu,  who  cures 
eye-complaints;  Lemmas,  fern.,  who  cures  wounds; 
Suonetar,  the  goddess  of  muscles  and  veins.  There 
are  also,  just  as  in  Roman  mythology,  goddesses  pre- 
siding over  the  arts  of  weaving,  dyeing,  travelling,  &c. 

Subterrestrial  Gods,  and  Ancestral  Spirits. 
Closely  connected  with  the  terrestrial  are  the  sub- 

1  Journal  de  la  Societe  Finno-Ougrienne,  vol.  v,  p.  23. 
VOL.  I.  T 


274    SUBTERRESTRIAL  GODS,   ANCESTRAL  SPIRITS,     [chap. 

terrestrial  gods.  It  is  very  difficult  to  gain  an  insight 
into  the  ideas  which  uncivilised  nations  form  to 
themselves  of  the  life  to  come.  That  there  is  such 
a  life  is  doubted  by  few  of  them,  and  the  Fins  as 
well  as  their  neighbours  seem  to  have  taken  it  for 
granted  that  the  next  life  would  in  many  respects 
be  the  same  as  the  life  on  earth.  Hence  they  buried 
many  things  which  the  departed  cared  for  in  the 
grave,  to  be  used  by  him  in  the  next  world.  Often 
the  presence  of  the  departed  was  suspected  in  the 
howling  of  the  wind,  the  crackling  of  the  fire,  the 
shivering  of  the  leaves,  while  the  Shamans  maintained 
that  they  could  actually  see  the  spirits  with  their  eyes. 
Ordinary  mortals  feel  their  presence  in  the  qualms 
of  a  bad  conscience,  in  distracting  dreams,  in  illness 
and  every  kind  of  suffering.  It  seems,  indeed,  as  if 
the  spirits  of  the  departed  had  been  very  frequently 
conceived  as  mischievous,  and  that  much  of  the 
respect  paid  to  them  arose  from  a  wish  to  pacify 
and  remove  them.  Often,  as  soon  as  the  corpse  had 
left  the  house,  a  red-hot  stone  x  was  thrown  after  it, 
so  as  to  bar  the  return  of  the  departed. 

After  the  funeral,  food  and  other  gifts  were  placed 
for  several  years  near  the  grave,  in  order  that  the 
departed  might  not  have  to  come  back  to  the  house 
for  what  he  wanted. 

However,  with  all  the  honours  paid  to  the  de- 
parted, they  always  formed  a  class  by  themselves. 
Even  when  they  were  addressed  with  divine  epithets, 
and  divine  honours  were  paid  to  them,  all  that 
could  be  said  is  that  they  had  been  raised  to  the 
rank  of  deities,  and  that  they  had  been  admitted  to 

1  See  M.  M.,  Funeral  Ceremonies  of  the  Brahmans. 


Ill]         SUBTERRESTRIAL  GODS,  ANCESTRAL  SPIRITS.        275 

a  place  among  a  class  of  beings  to  which  by  birth 
they  had  no  right.  That  class,  that  very  concept 
of  deity,  had  to  be  elaborated  first,  and  arose,  as 
we  saw,  from  very  different  materials. 

The  idea,  therefore,  that  divine  honours  could 
have  been  paid  to  ancestors,  that  temples  could 
have  been  erected  for  their  worship  before  the  con- 
cept of  deity  had  been  elaborated,  involves  a  hysteron 
proteron  which  no  historical  student  of  religion 
can  possibly  accept. 

Of  course,  when  a  belief  in  ancestral  spirits  had 
once  been  started,  when  it  was  once  allowed  that 
they  might  return  to  their  homes  and  cause  mis- 
chief, or  when  better  motives,  such  as  gratitude  and 
love,  had  suggested  certain  forms  under  which  such 
nobler  feelings  might  best  be  manifested,  ancestral 
worship  would  spread  very  rapidly  and  widely,  and 
call  into  existence  ever  so  many  classes  of  good  and 
bad,  clean  and  unclean  spirits,  whether  they  were 
called  fathers  or  ancestors,  ghosts  or  goblins,  shades 
or  spectres,  fays  or  banshees,  or,  as  among  Finno- 
Ugrian  tribes,  Tadebcjo,  Manningaiset,  Manalaiset, 
Keijuiset,  Koopelit,  Peijot,  &c. ]  Castren  suggests 
various  etymologies  for  these  names,  nay,  he  iden- 
tifies one  of  them,  Koopelit,  with  the  Greek  /co/3<x\o5, 
Lat.  cobalus,  Germ,  kobold,  the  Old  French  gobelin, 
our  own  goblin  and  hob-goblin  2.  He  has  shown,  in 
fact,  a  very  considerable  influx  of  Scandinavian 
words  and  ideas  into  the  language  and  mythology  of 
the  Fins  and  their  neighbours.     He  thinks  that  the 


1  Cf.  Castren,  I.e.,  pp.  1 21-123. 

2  Hob  is  a  corruption  of  Robin  ;    see   Skeat,   Etym.   Diet. 
Robin  is  French  for  Robert,  0.  H.  G.  Hruodperaht. 

T  2 


276     SUBTERRE3TRIAL  GODS,   ANCESTRAL  SPIRITS,    [chap. 

name  Manalaiset  indicates  that  the  Fins  believed 
the  spirits  of  the  departed  to  dwell  in  the  earth, 
whether  in  their  own  graves,  which  is  the  older 
view,  or  in  Manala,  also  called  Tuonela,  correspond- 
ing to  the  Hades  of  the  Greeks.  He  also  tells  us 
of  a  ruler  of  these  spirits,  who  was  called  Kalma, 
Tuoni,  or  Mana.  He  had  a  daughter  of  the  name 
of  Kalman-impi,  a  mischievous  spirit.  Tuoni  means 
simply  death,  and  is  supposed  by  Castren  to  be 
connected  with  the  Greek  Thanatos.  This  is  doubt- 
ful. Manala  is  a  contraction  of  maan-ala  (what  is 
beneath  the  earth),  but  as  it  seemed  to  mean  the 
abode  of  Mana,  Mana  was  made  into  a  spirit  like 
Tuoni,  death,  though  among  the  Fins  only. 

The  road  to  Tuonela,  the  land  of  death,  led  over 
nine  seas  and  a  half;  then  a  river  with  a  fearful 
waterfall  had  to  be  crossed  before  the  dead  could 
reach  their  resting-place.  In  some  places  a  boat  is 
mentioned,  rowed  by  a  daughter  of  Tuoni.  This 
place,  very  much  like  the  Helheim  of  the  Scandi- 
navians, was  supposed  to  be  a  repetition  of  the 
earth  with  sun,  land,  water,  forests,  and  meadows, 
with  bears,  wolves,  and  fishes.  It  was  always  full 
of  people  who  were  young  or  old,  strong  or  weak. 
Everything,  however,  was  dark  and  solemn  there, 
and  the  most  fearful  oath  was  supposed  to  be  that 
by  the  waterfall  of  the  subterranean  river  (like  the 
Styx).  The  ruler  of  the  departed  and  his  wife  had 
sons  and  daughters,  black,  small,  and  mischievous, 
and  even  more  terrible  than  their  parents.  Every 
kind  of  sickness  was  at  their  command,  and  these 
very  sicknesses  were  represented  as  small  demons 
(P-  173)- 


in]  castren's  summing  up.  277 

Castren's  Summing  Up. 

We  could  not  sum  up  the  wealth  of  Castren's 
observations  on  the  mythology  of  Finland  better 
than  in  his  own  words  : — 

'  In  examining  the  gods  of  the  Fins  and  of  other 
cognate  tribes,'  he  says,  '  we  have  seen  that  they  all 
look  for  the  divine  in  nature,  in  the  clouds  of  heaven, 
in  the  waves  of  the  sea,  in  the  depth  of  the  forest, 
and  in  the  hidden  lap  of  the  earth  ;  in  fact,  in  what- 
ever is  great,  powerful,  and  extraordinary  in  nature.' 

That  is  the  very  view  which  I  have  always  de- 
fended, and  which,  in  spite  of  all  persiflage,  it  will 
be  difficult  ever  to  set  aside.  Castren  thinks  that 
there  was  a  time  when  the  natural  objects  them- 
selves were  accepted  as  divine,  but  he  is  not  able  to 
prove  this.  As  soon  as  we  know  of  names,  invoca- 
tions, and  worship,  something  is  meant,  as  he  says 
himself,  which  is  in  nature,  but  hidden  behind  the 
visible  objects,  though  controlling  them.  If  any 
Samoyecles  told  Castren  that  they  worshipped  the 
visible  sky,  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  water,  and  the 
earth  as  divine,  all  we  can  say  is  that  they  knew  as 
little  what  they  said  as  the  Red  Indian  who  says 
that  he  worships  his  totem,  or  the  negro  who  calls 
the  tail  of  a  tiger  his  gri-gri  (fetish).  If  they 
worshipped  material  objects,  phenomena,  they  could 
only  have  worshipped  them  as  the  phenomenal  part 
of  something  non-phenomenal,  call  it  agents,  or 
powers,  or  spirits,  or  gods.  Castren  himself  does 
not  seem  to  be  quite  consistent  on  this  point,  for  he 
admits  in  another  place  (p.  197)  that  the  worshipped 
objects,  though  mere  trees  and  stones,  are  always 
looked  upon  as  living  and  personal.     This  is  really 


278  CASTRENS    SUMMING    UP.  [chap. 

all  that  I  contend  for.  A  thing  that  is  worshipped 
is  ipso  facto  no  longer  a  mere  thing,  unless  we  fall 
back  on  the  exploded  view  of  fetishism,  though  even 
then  we  must  remember  that  even  the  lowest  fetish 
was  taken  for  something  different  from  what  it 
seemed  to  be.  Otherwise  it  would  not  have  been 
a  fetish.  It  might  be  said  that  the  Finno-Ugrians 
also  were  fetish-worshippers,  for  some  of  them  carry 
small  stones  in  their  pockets  which  they  look  upon 
small  deities  (pp.  197,  221). 

We  have  seen  throughout  the  parallelism  between 
the  growth  of  mythology  and  that  of  religion  among 
the  Fins  and  among  the  Vedic  i&shis.  In  naming  the 
phenomena  of  nature  they  really  created  their  gods, 
though  as  yet  in  a  very  rudimentary  form.  These 
gods  were  as  yet  no  more  than  unknown  agents 
behind  the  phenomenal  world.  After  a  time  the 
something  behind  the  phenomenal,  the  agents  that 
control  the  vicissitudes  of  nature,  assumed  more 
and  more  of  a  personal  and  a  human  character,  they 
became  the  rulers  of  the  material  bodies  in  which 
their  presence  was  first  suspected,  and,  rising  higher 
and  higher  by  praise  and  worship,  they  became  in 
the  end  the  great  deities  of  the  ancient  world,  the 
gods  of  the  sky,  the  air,  the  earth,  the  waters,  and 
the  lower  regions.  Smaller  objects  of  nature  gave 
rise  to  smaller  gods,  conceived  either  as  independent, 
as  the  gods  of  the  forest,  the  trees,  the  lakes,  the 
hills,  or  as  subject  to  the  will  of  the  higher  gods. 
Besides  these  definite  beings,  there  are  the  spirits  of 
the  departed,  whether  in  the  air,  or  in  the  earth,  or 
under  the  earth,  and  the  numerous  fairies  and  sprites 
that  owe  their  existence  mostly  to  poetical  imagina- 
tions, or  to  childish  superstitions.     There  is  a  sharp 


Ill]  CASTRENS    SUMMING    UP.  279 

distinction,  however,  between  what  the  ancients 
meant  by  gods,  0eoC,  devas,  or  whatever  else  they 
called  them,  and  spirits,  SaLfxoves,  haltias,  tadebcjos, 
&c.  If  we  speak  of  spirits  we  must  not  suppose  that 
spirit  is  meant  to  exclude  material  bodies.  The 
spirits  can  generally  become  visible,  audible,  strong- 
smelling,  nay,  even  tangible,  and  they  are  therefore 
decidedly  material.  Even  the  spirits  of  the  departed 
are  often  supposed  to  be  able  to  eat  and  drink. 

Castren. 

So  much  about  the  Fins  and  their  gods  and 
spirits.  Whoever  knows  the  character  of  Castren, 
as  a  scholar  and  as  a  man,  feels  safe  in  his  hands. 
He  reports  carefully  and  conscientiously,  he  does 
not  invent,  and  when  he  feels  doubtful  himself,  he 
says  so.  But  he  has  often  to  protest  against  the 
statements  of  other  authors,  particularly  against 
Georgi,  who  seems  to  have  discovered  among  the 
Fins  very  much  what  he  wished  to  discover.  He 
ascribed  to  them  a  belief  in  a  universal  God,  the 
creator  of  all  things,  who  loves  His  creatures,  knows 
everything  and  can  do  everything,  though  He  has 
committed  the  government  of  the  world  to  inferior 
deities.  And  who,  before  Castren  took  up  this 
subject,  could  have  proved  that  Georgi  was  wrong  ? 
For,  after  all,  he  may  have  carried  off  this  impression 
from  casual  conversations  with  certain  people.  Sup- 
pose that  a  Finnish  traveller  were  to  consult  a  number 
of  people  in  England,  learned  or  unlearned,  as  to 
what  they  really  believed  and  disbelieved,  what  a 
strange,  nay,  what  an  incredible  collection  of  creeds 
would  be  the  outcome  of  such  an  inquisition,  how- 
ever honestly  conducted  !    Castren,  however,  totally 


280  CASTREN.  [chap. 

denies  Georgi's  statements,  and  no  one  has  con- 
versed with  more  Fins  than  he  has,  or  lived  with 
them  in  more  familiar  intercourse. 

'  It  is  true,'  he  says,  '  that  most  tribes  believe  in 
one  god,  who  has  his  abode  in  the  sky  and  is 
identified  now  and  then  with  the  sky,  but  no  one 
among  the  Fins  knows  of  him  as  the  creator,  which 
is  a  purely  Christian  or  Mohammedan  idea.  Nor 
is  it  true  that  the  Fins  believe  that  heavenly  god 
to  be  careless  about  the  world ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
is  believed  to  watch  the  world  constantly,  and  to 
interfere  most  actively  in  the  life  of  men,  by  reward- 
ing the  good,  and  punishing  the  bad,  even  in  this 
life.' 

Here  is  the  weak  point  in  a  comparative  study 
of  religions  which  possess  no  authoritative  books. 
Who  is  to  decide  between  two  travellers  that  con- 
tradict each  other?  Who  is  to  reconcile  their  con- 
flicting statements  ?  And  what  is  the  result  ?  Such 
is  human  nature,  that  each  writer  on  ancient  myths 
and  customs  accepts  what  agrees  with  his  own 
convictions,  without  troubling  about  what  seems  to 
tell  against  them.  He  cites  his  authorities,  and 
there  is  an  end,  for  who  is  to  contradict  him  or 
them  ?  I  may  feel  confidence  in  men  like  Castren 
and  Lonnrot,  but  if  Bastholm,  Klemm,  and  others 
should  prefer  Georgi,  who  can  prevent  them  ?  If 
anthropologists  would  only  extend  the  field  of  their 
studies,  they  would  find  more  variety,  nay,  even 
contradictions,  in  the  myths  and  customs  of  savage 
tribes  than  in  the  etymologies  of  classical  scholars, 
with  this  important  difference,  that  scholars  can 
judge  of  etymologies  by  themselves,  while  many 
a  Baron  Mllnchhausen  escapes  entirely  from  our 
cross-examination. 


m]  FOREIGN    INFLUENCES.  28 1 

Foreign  Influences. 
Another  real  difficulty  arises  from  our  inability 
to  distinguish  always  between  what  is  home-grown 
and  what  is  imported  in  the  religions  of  uncivilised 
races.    Castren  has  constantly  recourse  to  Teutonic, 
Iranic,    and   even    Sanskrit    words   to    explain  the 
origin  of  mythological  terms  in  Finnish  and  other 
Finno-Ugrian    dialects.     We    saw    before    that    he 
looks    upon  Tuoni,  the  god  of  death,  as  borrowed 
from  the  Greek  Thanatos.     But  if  so,  why  should 
not  Manala  be  borrowed  from  the  Latin  Manes,  and 
not    from  maan-ala  ?     Kudai    among  the  Tatars  is 
clearly  the  Persian   Khodai,    god   (Zend,    qadhata, 
self-made)  ;    nor    can    the    Mongolian    Chormusda, 
though  it  may  mean  the  tutelary  god  of  the  earth  l, 
be  separated  from  Hormasd,  i.  e.  Ahura  Mazda,  the 
wise  spirit  of  the  Persians.     If  aimo  at  the  end  of 
several  names    such    as    Saiva-aimo,   the   abode    of 
Saivo,    is    really    the    Scandinavian   heim    in    such 
names  as  Nifl-heim,  Muspel-heim,  &c,  why  should 
not  Saivo  be  connected  with  Goth,  saiws,  sea,  and 
with  saiwala,  spirit,  soul  ?    Why  should  not  Taivas, 
in  Finnish,  heaven,  be  borrowed  from   Sk.  daiva  \ 
The  Tungusic  name  for  god  is  Boa  (Buga),  which 
may  be  the  Persian  Baga,  the    Vedic  Bhaga,    the 
Pvussian  Bog'.     Burchan  is  said  to  be  the  Mongolian 
corruption  of  Buddha   (p.   182);    then  why  should 
not  yzit,  the  Tatar  name  of  spirits,  be  the  Zend 
yazata,  the  Persian  yazdah,  the  Sk.  ya^ata,    wor- 
shipful ?     Even  the  thunderbolt  being  called  Aijeke 
vetschera,  the  hammer  of  Aijeke  or  Ukko  (p.  47), 
may   be    the    Zend    vazra,    club,    the    Sk.    vac/ra, 


1  He  is  mentioned  as  creator  also,  p.  149. 


282  FOREIGN    INFLUENCES.  [chap. 

thunderbolt.  All  these  are,  of  course,  mere  guesses, 
and  we  must  wait  till  the  phonetic  system  of  the 
Finnish  languages  has  been  elaborated  with  the 
same  accuracy  as  that  of  Sanskrit,  Greek,  and  Latin 
before  we  can  pronounce  any  positive  opinion.  But 
if  some  of  these  guesses  are  right,  the  very  founda- 
tion of  the  mythology  of  the  Finno-Ugrian  races 
would  be  shaken.  However,  we  must  be  careful. 
Coincidences  may  go  very  far,  and  yet,  unless  we 
actually  find  foreign  words  we  may  have  no  right 
to  admit  anything  like  actual  borrowing.  The 
similarity  between  the  creation  of  the  world  from 
an  egg,  as  given  in  the  Kalevala  and  in  the 
A7zandogya-Upanishad  is  very  startling,  but  who 
would  say  that  the  Fins  had  borrowed  it  from  the 
Brahman s,  or  the  Brahmans  from  the  Fins  ? 

The  Mundane  Egg. 

In  the  Kalevala  we  read  : — 

The  lower  half  of  the  egg 
Shall  be  the  roof  of  the  earth, 
The  upper  part  of  the  egg, 
Shall  become  the  high  sky. 
Whatever  is  white  in  the  egg 
Shall  shine  as  sun  in  the  sky, 
Whatever  is  yellow  in  the  egg 
Shall  beam  sweetly  as  the  moon. 
The  other  parts  of  the  egg 
Shall  become  the  stars  of  heaven. 

In  the  A7iandogya-Up.  Ill,  19,1,  we  read  : — 

'  The  egg  broke  open.  The  two  halves  were  one  of 
silver,  the  other  of  gold.  The  silver  one  became  this 
earth,  the  golden  one  the  sky  ;  the  thick  membrane 
(of  the  yoke)  the  mist  with  the  clouds,  the  small 


Ill]  THE    MUNDANE    EGG.  283 

veins  the  rivers,  the  fluid  the  sea.     And  what  was 
born  from  it  was  the  sun.' 

How  to  account  for  such  similarities,  which  might 
be  pointed  out  in  many  other  mythologies  also, 
is  not  easy  to  say.  Anyhow  we  can  see  how  much 
there  still  remains  to  be  done,  even  after  the 
careful  researches  of  Castren  and  his  fellow- 
labourers,  and  if  we  must  learn  to  be  cautious  in 
using  even  such  scholarlike  accounts  as  that  of 
Castren  of  the  mythology  and  religion  of  the  Finno- 
Ugrian  tribes  for  the  purposes  of  far-reaching 
comparisons,  what  shall  we  say  of  the  descriptions 
of  the  religion  of  the  Andaman  islanders  or  the 
Patagonians,  where  certain  scholars  find  the  key, 
a  real  passe-partout,  to  open  the  secret  drawers  of 
the  Vedic  or  Greek  mythology  ?  The  main  outlines, 
however,  of  the  mytho-religious  system  of  the  Fins, 
as  traced  by  the  hand  of  so  competent  a  scholar  as 
Castren,  may  probably  be  accepted  as  trustworthy, 
and  serve  therefore  as  a  safe  starting-point  for  an 
analysis  of  the  mythologies  of  other  nations,  the  only 
object  for  which  they  have  here  been  mentioned. 

The  Physical  Basis  of  the  Ugro-Finnic  Mythologies. 

The  chief  reason,  however,  why  the  mythologies 
of  the  Mordvines  and  of  the  Fins,  which  we  have 
hitherto  examined,  possess  for  us  a  higher  value  than 
the  mythologies  of  Kafirs  or  Australians,  is  because 
they  rest  on  some  kind  of  literary  evidence  which 
is  far  more  trustworthy  than  the  observations  of 
travellers  who  can  only  tell  us  of  the  present  state  of 
traditions  and  customs  as  seen  on  the  spot. 

Of  the  Mordvines  we  possess  at  least  prayers  and 


284  UGRO-FINNIC    MYTHOLOGY.  [chap. 

invocations,  of  the  Fins  we  possess  what  may  be 
called  an  epic  poem,  as  rich  in  mythological  lore  as 
the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey.  There  are  but  few 
mythologies  of  uncivilised  races  which  can  produce 
such  vouchers,  and  which  at  the  same  time  have 
the  advantage  of  not  having  been  reduced  to  an 
artificial  system  by  priests  or  lawyers.  It  would 
have  been  easy  to  go  through  several  other  mytho- 
logies, and  to  show  how  they  grew  up  from  the 
same  psychological  soil  as  the  Mordvinian  and 
Finnish.  But  most  of  these  mythologies  are  well 
known,  such  as  the  Egyptian  and  Babylonian,  and 
the  Chinese.  A  reference  to  the  Hibbert  Lectures  of 
Le  Page  Renouf,  Sayce,  and  others  will  show  to  any 
one  who  has  eyes  to  see  and  ears  willing  to  listen, 
the  physical  framework  of  these  ancient  mytho- 
logies, and  will  show  more  particularly  the  rampant 
growth  of  solar  myths  on  almost  every  page. 

With  regard  to  the  so-called  Naturvolker,  there 
is  no  work  that  for  scholarlike  accuracy  can  vie  with 
Waitz,  Anthropologic  der  Naturvolker,  and  his 
descriptions  of  the  mythology  and  religion  of  the 
lowest  races  show  almost  everywhere  the  same 
original  worship  of  physical  gods,  often  followed  in 
later  times  by  a  worship  of  ancestors  (vol.  v,  p.  135). 
The  difficulty  would  be  to  find  any  mythology 
without  that  physical  background,  and  we  may 
therefore  wait  for  counter-instances,  instead  of 
multiplying  our  instances  beyond  what  we  have 
done  already.  What  we  maintain  without  fear  of 
contradiction  is,  that  the  gods  of  ancient  mythology, 
whether  in  India  or  Persia,  in  Babylon  or  Nineveh, 
in  Egypt,  among  Fins  and  Laps,  among  Greeks  and 
Romans,  were  originally  derived  from  nature,  though, 


m]  UGRO-FINNIC    MYTHOLOGY.  285 

with  Waitz,  we  are  ready  to  admit  that  when  once 
started  the  stream  of  ancient  mythology  is  very 
rapacious  and  capacious,  and  may  receive  ever  so 
many  tributaries  from  different  sources  which 
require  a  special  study  and  careful  analysis. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL    SCHOOL    OF    COMPARATIVE 
MYTHOLOGY. 

Ethno-psychological  Studies. 

The  preceding  pages  will  have  shown,  I  hope,  that 
I  am  not  and  never  have  been  averse  to  a  comparison 
of  Sanskrit,  Greek,  or  Roman  mythology  with  the 
folklore  of  less  civilised  races,  provided  it  be  worked 
out  by  competent  scholars.  Such  analogies,  though 
they  are  not  intended  to  prove  any  genealogical 
connection  between  races  divided  from  each  other, 
if  not  by  blood,  at  least  by  language,  are  extremely 
useful  as  helping  in  some  cases  to  explain  what 
seems  purely  irrational  in  one  myth  by  what  is 
more  intelligible  in  another.  As  soon  as  such 
researches  are  carried  on  in  a  truly  scholarlike  spirit, 
as  soon  as  students  prove  their  honesty  by  learning 
at  least  the  languages  of  these  little-known  races 
with  something  like  the  thoroughness  with  which 
they  have  learnt  the  languages  of  Greeks,  Romans, 
and  Hindus,  they  will  open  a  new  and  bright  period 
in  the  study  of  mythology.  Or  if  they  would  at 
least  make  a  critical  selection  of  the  authorities  on 
which  they  rely,  and  avail  themselves  of  the  help  of 
scholars  who  have  mastered  the  difficulties  of  Maori, 
or  Hottentot,  or  Cree,  their  labours  might  prove  not 
only  amusing,  but  really  helpful.     I  must  confess,  it 


ETHNO-PSYCHOLOGICAL    STUDIES.  287 

may  be  to  my  shame,  that  I  never  care  to  read 
anything  about  the  mythologies  of  savage  tribes 
unless  it  is  written  by  some  one  who  knows  the 
language.  There  are  so  many  scholarlike  books  to 
be  read  on  Amazulus  and  Khoi-khois  that  I  never, 
or  very  rarely,  allow  myself  the  pleasure  of  studying 
what  others  may  have  written  about  the  works  of 
Callaway,  Hahn,  Codrington,  &c.  And  this,  better 
than  anything  else,  will  explain,  though  perhaps  it 
cannot  excuse,  my  having  hitherto  so  seldom  referred 
either  with  approval  or  disapproval  to  certain  recent 
works  on  myths  and  traditions. 

Mythology,  as  will  be  found  out  soon  enough,  is 
a  very  serious  and  important  subject,  far  too  im- 
portant and  far  too  serious  to  be  played  with.  It 
represents  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Ascent  of 
Man,  which  contains  the  key  to  many  of  the  most 
perplexing  riddles  in  the  growth  of  the  human 
mind.  To  say  that  there  is  no  reason  in  it  would 
be  like  saying  that  there  was  no  organic  life  in  the 
coal-stratum  of  our  earth.  And  this  development  of 
human  reason  is  surely  a  subject  nearer  to  our  heart 
than  the  growth  of  the  crust  of  the  earth,  or  even 
the  development  of  living  beings,  beginning  with 
the  Moneres  and  the  Amoeba.  It  is  quite  true  that 
a  serious  treatment  of  mythology  is  not  so  attractive 
as  what  has  been  called  Popular  Storiology,  but  it  is 
hardly  fair  that  the  successful  diggers  of  coals  or 
diamonds  should  jeer  at  the  patient  hewers  of 
stones,  who  work  for  weeks  and  weeks  before  they 
can  detach  or  lift  one  solid  block  of  granite  from 
the  mines  of  ancient  history  and  tradition. 

I  have  often  on  former  occasions  tried  to  show  in 
what  way  so-called  ethno-psychological  or  psycho- 


288  ETHXO-PSYCHOLOGICAL    STUDIES.  [chap. 

logical  studies  can  help  us  in  the  study  of  ancient 
mythology.  It  used  to  be  a  maxim  followed  in  all 
comparative  studies  that  if  people  agreed  in  what 
was  rational,  there  was  no  necessity  for  admitting  any 
borrowing  or  any  common  inheritance.  Common  sense 
was  enough.  But  if  they  agreed  in  what  was  irrational, 
it  was  presumed  that  it  had  been  borrowed  on  one 
side  or  the  other. 

Dr.  Gruppe. 

A  very  strong  illustration  of  this  principle  has 
lately  been  given  by  Dr.  Gruppe,  who  was  so  much 
struck  by  the  irrationality  of  all  mythology,  if  not 
of  all  religion,  that  he  thought  this  extraordinary 
illusion  could  only  have  happened  to  the  human 
race  once,  most  likely  in  ancient  India,  and  that  all 
the  coincidences  between  the  beliefs  of  the  Brahmans 
and  those  of  Greeks,  Romans,  Teutons,  Celts,  or 
Slaves,  must  therefore  be  accounted  for  by  actual 
borrowing  or  by  exportation  on  well-ascertained 
intellectual  trade-roads  from  India  to  all  parts  of 
the  world ;  and  not,  as  I  hold,  by  a  natural  develop- 
ment, as  in  the  case  of  language. 

Without  discussing  this  bold  solution  of  the 
problem  of  Aryan  mythology,  possibly  of  Aryan 
language  also,  we  may  at  all  events  draw  from  it 
this  useful  lesson  that,  if  the  trade-roads  of  the 
ancient  world  should  fail,  there  is  nothing  left  but 
to  fall  back  on  that  common  psychological  stratum 
which  would  account  for  certain  coincidences  between 
the  mythologies  and  religions  of  races,  particularly 
of  those  who,  so  far  as  we  know,  have  never  been  in 
historical  contact. 

If  we  can  discover  method  in  madness,  why  not 
in  the  strange  myths  and  customs  of  the  inhabitants 


IV]  ETHNO-PSYCHOLOGICAL    STUDIES.  289 

of  the  world,  or  rather  in  the  coincidences  between 
them  which  have  staggered  so  many  ethnologists 
and  psychologists. 

Sense  of  Shame. 

It  is  in  this  way  that,  for  instance,  the  sense  of 
shame  may  be  accounted  for  in  its  various  manifes- 
tations in  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  world.  It 
has  been  shown  by  early  ethnologists,  such  as 
Bastholm,  that  the  feeling  of  shame  with  regard  to 
the  nakedness  of  our  body  is  by  no  means  universal, 
and  that  it  was  a  love  of  ornamentation  rather  than 
anything  else,  which  first  induced  man  and  woman 
to  use  teguments  of  different  kinds.  Still,  even  then 
the  history  of  the  slow  development  of  the  sense  of 
shame  is  a  most  interesting  chapter  of  ethnic 
psychology,  and  deserves  to  be  treated  afresh,  with 
all  the  new  information  which  has  been  accumulated 
since  Bastholm's  time.  Here  there  is  a  wide  field 
open  to  ethnological  students,  provided  they  will 
not  shrink  from  hard  work,  which  alone  can  help 
them  to  get  beneath  the  surface,  and  to  gain  a  real 
understanding  of  the  strange  customs,  beliefs,  and 
myths  of  savage  tribes. 

Discovery  of  Motives. 

What  we  most  want  to  know  in  each  case  is  the 
motive,  for  it  is  well  known  that  people  in  distant 
parts  of  the  world  often  do  what  seems  to  be  the  same 
thing,  but  what  is  not,  because  the  motives  were 
different.  The  strange  custom  of  the  Couvade  has 
been  traced  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  but  hitherto 
the  custom  itself  has  never  been  thoroughly  accounted 
for.     The  same  applies  to  the   suicide  of  widows, 

vol.  1.  u 


290  DISCOVERY    OF    MOTIVES.  [CHAP. 

which  has  been  proved  to  have  existed  not  only  in 
India,  but  in  Germany,  and  among  the  Scythians. 
Chamisso  mentions  in  his  Travels  (ii,  81)  that  in 
Fiji  also  widows  killed  themselves  of  their  own  free 
will  at  the  funeral  of  their  husbands ;  while  in 
Tonga  this  custom  is  peculiar  to  one  family,  that  of 
Tooitonga  l.  But  the  question  is,  whether  in  these 
different  countries  the  motive  was  always  the  same. 
It  may  have  been  a  desire  to  join  the  husband  in 
another  life,  a  wish  to  escape  from  the  cruelty  of 
the  relatives,  or  simply  a  readiness  to  conform  to 
a  sacred  custom  in  order  to  avoid  bringing  disgrace 
on  the  family.  There  may  have  been  no  motive  at 
all  on  the  part  of  the  victim,  but  simply  the  physical 
force  used  by  the  community  at  large.  Unless  the 
motive  is  the  same,  the  custom  is  not  the  same  ; 
unless  the  motive  is  discovered,  the  facts  themselves 
are  curious,  but  no  more. 

Here  much  has  already  been  achieved  by  ethno- 
logical studies.  It  was  formerly  supposed  that  circum- 
cision was  peculiar  to  the  Jews,  it  is  now  known  to 
have  been  a  custom  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  in 
Egypt,  Arabia,  Ethiopia,  Kolchis,  Phenicia,  and  Syria. 
It  was  spread  far  and  wide  by  the  Mohammedans, 
and  is  now  found  in  many  of  the  Polynesian  islands. 
Still,  it  has  never  been  settled  whether  this  custom 
arose  independently  at  different  times  and  in  different 
parts  of  the  world,  and  with  different  objects,  or 
whether  it  had  but  one  source  and  one  object,  and 
was  communicated  from  nation  to  nation  like  the 
letters  of  the  Phenician,  originally  Egyptian,  alpha- 
bet, or  like  the  Arabic,  originally  Indian,  figures. 


1  Mariner's  Tonga,  i,  p.  330. 


iv]  ABSTRACT    IDEAS    AMONG    SAVAGES.  29 1 

Abstract  Ideas  among  Savages. 

There  is  another  subject  on  which  a  comparative 
study  of  savage  and  uncivilised  races  may  throw 
most  valuable  light. 

It  seems  often  to  have  been  taken  for  granted 
that  uncivilised  races  are  incapable  of  abstract  ideas, 
and  that  their  conception  of  gods  must  be  savage, 
crude,  childish,  or  grotesque.  Whether  this  is  true 
with  regard  to  the  postulated  primeval  savages, 
whether  they  were  really  incapable  of  abstract 
thought,  we  are  unable  either  to  assert  or  to  deny. 
But  if,  as  we  are  told,  we  should  learn  from  modern 
savages  what  primeval  savages  must  have  been  like, 
we  shall  be  surprised  to  see  their  extraordinary 
power  of  abstraction,  and  the  sublimity  of  some  of 
their  speculations.  The  people  of  Mangaia,  whom 
the  Rev.  W.  W.  Gill  has  so  well  described  to  us, 
had  evidently  never  been  touched  by  the  rays  of  any 
higher  civilisation  before  his  arrival.  What  they 
possess,  they  had  worked  out  for  themselves,  and 
yet  these  so-called  savages  told  the  first  missionary 
who  landed  on  their  shores  that  the  universe  was  like 
the  hollow  of  a  vast  cocoa-nut  shell,  and  that  at  the 
bottom  of  it  was  a  thick  stem,  tapering  to  a  point, 
which  they  call  thread-worm.  This  seems  sufficiently 
childish.  But  when  they  represent  this  point  as 
a  spirit  without  human  form,  and  call  it  The-root- 
of-all-existence,  and  the  next  stage  the  Breathing 
or  Life,  we  are  told  at  once  that  all  this  must  have 
come  from  missionaries,  because  such  abstract  ideas 
are  impossible  with  savages,  whether  modern  or 
ancient.  This  is  an  easy  way  out  of  a  self-made 
difficulty,  but  how  can  we  account  for  the  existence 

u  2 


292  ABSTRACT    IDEAS    AMONG    SAVAGES.  [chap. 

of  the  words  in  this  language  which  convey  such 
a  concept  as  Te-aka-ia-Roe,  the  root  of  all  existence  ? 

Can  such  words  have  been  formed  without  the  aid 
of  abstract  thought  ? 

If  we  wish  to  make  the  study  of  savage  races 
really  useful  we  must  try  to  free  ourselves  from  all 
preconceived  ideas,  and  instead  of  looking  for  idols, 
or  for  totems  and  fetishes,  learn  to  accept  and  to 
understand  what  the  savages  themselves  are  able 
to  tell  us,  which  is  often  much  or  little,  according  to 
the  way  in  which  we  approach  them  and  are  able 
to  gain  their  confidence. 

When  some  years  ago  I  ventured  to  represent  the 
Perception  of  the  Infinite  as  the  source  and  origin 
of  all  religion,  an  expression  in  which,  as  I  am 
informed,  I  was  anticipated  by  Ancillon,  I  en- 
countered a  storm  of  unfounded  obloquy.  First  of 
all,  I  was  informed  that  the  Infinite  could  never 
form  the  object  of  perception,  because  sensuous 
perception  can  deal  with  finite  or  definite  objects 
only.  As  if  I  had  not  carefully  guarded  against 
this  very  objection  by  explaining  that  what  I  meant 
by  perception,  and  by  sensuous  perception,  was  no 
more  than  the  pressure  which  the  infinite  exercises 
on  our  senses  and  by  which  it  asserts  its  presence. 
When  our  eyes  perceive  the  horizon,  i.  e.  their  finis, 
they  perceive,  not  by  reasoning,  but  by  actual  sensa- 
tion, what  is  at  the  same  time  the  end  of  the  Finite, 
and  the  beginning  of  the  Infinite. 

What  Wordsworth  said  of  the  peak  of  a  Swiss 
mountain  hidden  behind  the  low  clouds,  that  you 
felt  it  to  be  there,  though  you  could  not  see  it, 
applies  with  equal  force  to  the  Infinite  hidden 
behind  the  low  clouds  of  finite  things. 


iv]  ABSTRACT    IDEAS    AMONG    SAVAGES.  293 

This  actual  sensation  of  a  Beyond  in  all  things, 
whether  great  or  small,  seemed  to  me  the  true 
foundation,  or  the  sine  qua  non,  of  religion,  because 
it  is  the  nature  of  all  religion  to  be  transcendental, 
i.  e.  to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  the  senses.  This,  if 
I  understood  the  various  religions  of  the  world 
rightly,  was  the  canvas  on  which  each  of  them 
drew  the  outlines  of  their  gods  and  heroes,  nay,  the 
whole  picture  of  their  religion  and  philosophy. 

But  here  I  was  informed,  again  and  again,  that 
to  assign  so  abstract  a  term  as  the  Infinite  to  the 
earliest  period  of  the  human  intellect  was  an  un- 
pardonable anachronism.  Did  my  critics  really  take 
me  to  be  so  unfamiliar  with  philosophy  and  history 
as  to  have  overlooked  this  obvious  objection  ?  Did 
they  not  see  that  it  was  my  very  object  to  show  that 
this  highly  abstract  term,  the  Infinite,  had,  like  all 
abstract  terms,  its  beginning  in  something  very  con- 
crete, from  which  it  was  slowly  developed  till  it 
became  what  it  is  now  with  us  ?  If  such  a  term  as 
transcendent  began  at  first  with  what  had  marched 
across  the  hills,  or  the  sky,  was  beyond  our  view, 
was  invisible,  though  undoubtedly  real,  why  should 
not  the  Infinite  begin  with  the  desert,  or  the  sea,  or 
the  sky  ?  In  the  perception  of  these  it  was  actually 
seen  or  felt  that  there  was  something  beyond  the 
visible,  and  this  was  what  I  meant  by  the  Perception 
of  the  Infinite.  I  was  told  that  my  definition  would 
include  the  numerical  Infinite  also,  though  that  could 
never  lead  on  to  religious  concepts.  I  surely  never 
said  it  would  do  so,  though  the  concept  of  the  Eternal 
may  well  be  said  to  involve  that  of  numerical  and  geo- 
metrical infinity  also.  Again,  I  was  told  that  what 
I  called  the  Infinite  was  only  the  Indefinite,  but  what 


294  ABSTRACT    IDEAS    AMONG    SAVAGES.  [chap. 

was  the  distinction  between  the  two  was  never  ex- 
plained by  my  eminent  critics.  However,  a  little 
study  of  the  religious  belief  of  Polynesian  and  Melane- 
sian  savages,  would  easily  have  convinced  the  most 
determined  sceptics  that  these  so-called  savage,  or 
at  all  events,  uncivilised  races,  actually  possess 
a  concept  which  comes  as  near  as  possible  to  what 
I  meant  by  the  Infinite,  a  supernatural  force  be- 
longing to  the  region  of  the  unseen,  a  force  in  its 
origin  altogether  distinct  from  physical  powers,  and 
acting  in  all  kinds  of  ways  for  good  or  for  evil. 
Why  this  power  was,  among  the  Melanesians,  called 
Mana  we  do  not  know,  we  only  know  its  later 
history  and  its  many  applications.  Mana  (they  tell 
us)  may  be  everywhere  :  in  nature,  in  man,  in  words. 
It  is  impersonal,  and  may  often  be  rendered  by 
supernatural  or  magic  power,  present  in  a  stone, 
in  an  individual,  or  in  formula  or  charms.  A  man 
possesses  mana  or  mana  possesses  him,  but  he  never 
is  said  to  be  mana.  All  spirits,  and  mostly  ghosts 
also,  have  mana,  and  every  success  that  is  achieved 
by  men  is  ascribed  to  mana,  in  which  case  the 
meaning  of  the  word  seems  often  to  be  no  more 
than  luck.  But  though  mana  may  be  at  work 
everywhere,  it  is  itself  never  seen,  it  is  impersonal, 
invisible,  and  unknowable ;  it  is  beyond  all  that 
is  finite,  it  is  superhuman,  it  might  be  called  daiva 
or  divine ;  it  is,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  the 
Beyond,  or  the  Infinite,  the  Supernatural  or  the 
Divine.  It  is  curious  that  all  persons  and  things  in 
which  this  power  resides  are  said  to  be  hot  (raka), 
which  reminds  one  of  the  original  meaning  of  tapas. 
Our  ideas  of  savages  and  of  primitive  men  are  so 
much    the    work    of    imagination    only,    that    they 


IV]  ABSTKACT    IDEAS    AMONG    SAVAGES.  295 

require  constant  correction  from  real  facts.  These 
facts,  however,  should  not  be  taken  exclusively  from 
cannibals  and  half-bestial  specimens  of  humanity, 
but  likewise  from  races  which,  though  they  may  be 
called  uncivilised,  possess  languages  that  bear  wit- 
ness to  considerable  mental  effort,  and  concepts 
embodying  the  highest  abstractions  of  which  the 
human  mind  is  capable.  The  idea  that  there  are 
or  that  there  were  any  human  beings  without 
abstract  words,  though  it  has  been  repeated  again 
and  again,  can  no  longer  be  maintained  when  we 
have  once  learned  that  no  words,  except  those  due 
to  imitation  of  sound,  can  possibly  have  been  formed 
without  abstraction 1. 

1  Hobbes,  Computation  or  Logic,  cap.  ii.     Mill,  Logic,  book  i, 
chap.  2 .     Science  of  Thought,  p.  7  7  seq. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PHONETICS. 

Phonetic  Rules  General  and  Special. 

Having  thus  far  endeavoured  to  vindicate  for 
the  Analogical  and  the  Psychological  Schools  of 
Comparative  Mythology  their  right  to  exist,  and 
having  shown,  as  I  hope,  to  our  so-called  adversaries 
how  welcome  their  own  work  has  always  been  to  us, 
if  only  their  materials  were  collected  in  a  truly 
scholarlike  spirit,  I  might  proceed  at  once  to  an 
exposition  of  the  principles  that  guide  the  Genea- 
logical and  Linguistic  School,  and  to  a  comparison 
of  Vedic  and  Greek  myths  and  traditions  as  carried 
out  in  accordance  with  its  principles.  But  I  have 
first  to  make  my  position  quite  clear  with  regard 
to  the  conditions  under  which,  in  the  case  of  gods 
and  heroes  who  lend  themselves  to  a  material 
comparison,  the  comparison  of  their  names  should 
be  carried  out.  It  is  well  known  that  the  ancient 
gods  were  very  polyonymous,  and  that  their  names 
were  liable  not  only  to  change,  but  likewise  to 
extinction.  Gods,  therefore,  may  often  go  back 
to  the  same  origin  and  yet  appear  before  us  with 
totally  different  names.  But  there  can  be  nothing 
older   in  the    characteristics  of  any  god  than  his 


PHONETIC    EULES    GENEEAL    AND    SPECIAL.         297 

name,  and  hence  the  great  importance  of  a  com- 
parison of  names,  whenever  such  comparison  is 
possible. 

It  is  likewise  well  known  that  mere  similarity  of 
sound  is  no  longer  considered  a  sufficient  proof 
of  etymological  identity ;  that,  on  the  contrary, 
similarity  or  identity  of  sound  between  the  names 
of  Vedic  and  Greek  gods  would  arouse  legitimate 
suspicion.  If,  for  instance,  the  Old  Norse  wTord  for 
Dyaus  were  Dy-r,  instead  of  Ty-r,  if  in  English  we  had 
Dues-day  instead  of  Tuesday,  the  two  words,  though 
more  alike  phonetically,  would  be  widely  distant  or 
irreconcilable  etymologically.  In  the  same  way,  if 
the  word  for  ten  should  be  decern  in  English,  as  in 
Latin,  we  should  know  at  once  that  the  two  could 
not  be  genealogically  connected,  nay,  even  if  the 
word  for  ten  in  English  were  zehn,  as  it  is  in  the 
spoken  High  German,  we  should  feel  convinced  that 
it  was  not  the  old  common  Aryan  word  for  ten. 
English  words,  German  words,  Latin  and  Sanskrit 
words,  must  all  have  passed  through  those  phonetic 
modifications  which  make  them  English,  German, 
Latin,  or  Sanskrit,  before  they  can  claim  their  birth- 
right in  any  one  of  these  languages. 

The  question  is,  Do  the  phonetic  rules  which 
determine  the  peculiar  sounds  of  Aryan  words  in 
each  of  the  Aryan  dialects  apply  with  equal  force  to 
proper  names,  more  particularly  to  the  names  of 
mythological  gods  and  heroes  ?  This  is  a  question 
that  has  often  been  asked ;  it  was  asked  many 
years  ago  by  Benfey,  but  it  has  never  been  boldly 
answered.  Unless  we  can  come  to  a  clear  under- 
standing on  this  point,  we  should  find  ourselves 
impeded  at  every  step  we  take,  we  should  have  to 


298        PHONETIC  RULES  GENERAL  AND  SPECIAL         [chap. 

fight  over  the  etymology  of  every  name,  and  to 
defend  again  and  again  the  principles  by  which  we 
are  guided. 

There  are  certain  phonetic  rules  that  are  binding 
on  us,  whether  we  treat  of  nouns,  or  verbs,  or  of 
proper  names.  These  I  shall  proceed  to  state  at 
once,  and  as  much  as  possible  in  chronological  order, 
that  is,  as  I  have  watched  their  discovery  during 
half  a  century,  and  have  carefully  tried  to  obey 
them  in  the  progress  of  my  own  researches.  After- 
wards will  follow  a  statement  of  facts  derived  from 
the  history  of  proper  names  in  different  languages, 
showing  the  difference  of  their  phonetic  changes  as 
compared  with  the  changes  of  appellative  nouns,  a 
difference  which  has  hitherto  been  strangely  over- 
looked, and  which  deserves  a  far  more  comprehensive 
treatment  than  I  have  been  able  to  bestow  on  it. 
If  facts  are  facts,  whether  they  support  or  run 
counter  to  generally  accepted  theories,  the  facts  of 
the  history  of  proper  names  ought  to  carry  as  much 
weight  as  the  facts  best  known  to  us  from  the 
phonetic  vicissitudes  of  nouns  and  verbs,  prepo- 
sitions and  adverbs.  If  the  changes  of  proper 
names  differ  from  those  of  nouns  and  verbs,  it 
would  be  useless  to  shut  our  eyes  and  say  that 
this  must  not  be,  but  that  they  also  have  to  obey 
the  phonetic  laws  that  regulate  the  changes  of  other 
words.  I  know,  of  course,  that  any  deviation  from 
our  well-established  phonetic  rules  will  at  once  be 
put  down  as  license,  not  as  liberty,  but  as  long  as 
our  facts  cannot  be  denied,  our  deductions  will  have 
to  be  accepted.  Astronomers  do  not  calculate  the 
orbits  of  comets  like  the  orbits  of  other  stars,  and 
if  they    did,   their   calculations    would   be   useless. 


v]  PHONETIC    RULES    GENERAL    AND    SPECIAL.         299 

The  same  kind  of  uncertainty  must  be  admitted 
in  our  attempts  at  proving  the  identity  of  proper 
names,  particularly  of  the  proper  names  of  gods  and 
heroes,  as  they  appear  in  the  Yeda,  and  as  they 
reappear  in  other  Aryan  mythologies.  This  is,  no 
doubt,  a  difficulty,  but  it  is  a  difficulty  which  it  is 
better  to  face  than  to  blink,  particularly  when  there 
are  other  means  by  which  such  phonetic  uncertainties 
can  be  reduced,  if  not  altogether  removed. 


The  Discovery  of  Phonetic  Rules. 

Being  one  of  the  few  scholars  left  who  learnt  the 
elements  of  Comparative  Philology  in  the  lecture- 
room  of  Professor  Bopp  at  Berlin,  I  have  lived  through 
almost  the  whole  history  of  that  science,  and  the 
various  stages  which  have  marked  its  growth  have 
assumed  in  my  eyes  a  peculiar,  almost  a  biographical 
interest.  There  have,  no  doubt,  been  many  changes, 
and  on  the  whole  there  has  been  decided  progress. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise  when  we  think  of  the 
eminent  scholars  who  have  carried  on  the  work  of 
Bopp,  Grimm,  and  Pott  ?  But  though  much  has 
been  gained,  something  also,  it  sometimes  seems  to 
me,  has  been  lost,  and  complaints  have  of  late  been 
numerous,  that  the  study  of  language  and  languages 
has  no  longer  the  same  attraction  which  it  possessed 
in  earlier  days,  and,  more  particularly,  that  it  exer- 
cises no  longer  the  same  salutary  influence  which  at 
one  time  it  exercised  on  classical  studies,  on  the 
study  of  ancient  history,  mythology,  and  religion, 
both  in  the  schools  and  in  the  universities  of 
Europe.  What  is  chiefly  complained  of  is  that 
historical,    mythological,    etymological,    and  philo- 


300  THE    DISCOVERY    OF    PHONETIC    RULES.        [chap. 

sophical  questions  are  ordered  to  stand  aside 
or  ruled  out  of  court  whenever  they  conflict 
or  seem  to  conflict  with  phonetic  observations. 
The  idea  that  the  phonetic  rules  of  to-day  could 
possibly  have  to  yield  to  the  phonetic  rules  of  to- 
morrow, or  to  other  arguments,  is  never  entertained. 
Let  us  take  an  instance.  We  are  told  that  sidati, 
he  sits,  is  the  regular  representative  of  sisadati, 
changed  to  sisdati,  sizdati,  and  sidati.  I  do  not 
question  the  possibility  of  this  derivation  ;  I  only 
wish  to  point  out  how  small  the  amount  of  evidence 
really  is  which  is  made  to  serve  as  the  foundation 
for  what  is  called  a  phonetic  law,  viz.  that  sd  in 
Sanskrit  has  to  be  changed  to  zd,  and  that  after  the 
loss  of  the  z  the  vowel  must  be  lengthened,  thus 
leaving  d  in  the  place  of  sd.  The  cases  quoted  as 
parallel  are  very  few  in  number,  nor  are  they  alto- 
gether parallel.  The  Sanskrit  nic/a,  nidus,  nest, 
which  has  been  quoted  as  a  parallel  case,  is  not 
quite  so.  If  it  is  derived  from  ni  +  sada,  sitting 
down,  we  should  require  a  word  like  nishada  in 
Sanskrit,  having  the  accent  on  the  last  syllable. 
In  this  way  only  could  we  account  for  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  radical  a  in  shada.  And  while  in  nic/a 
the  dental  d  has  properly  been  changed  into  a  lingual 
d,  owing  to  the  influence  of  the  linguo-palatal  z  in 
*nizc?a  for  nisda,  it  has  not  been  so  changed  in  sidati, 
so  that  an  essential  element  is  wanting  to  establish 
a  real  parallelism.  Another  parallel  case,  the  Sans- 
krit pit/,  to  press,  has  been  explained  as  a  con- 
traction of  pi-sad  for  api-sad,  to  sit  on.  But  here 
also  the  d  has  rightly  been  changed  to  d,  and  has 
not  remained  unaffected  by  the  z,  as  in  sidati  for 
*skdati. 


v]  THE    DISCOVERY    OF    PHONETIC    RULES.  30I 

It  should  also  be  remembered  that  though  the 
derivation  of  pi<i  from  pi-sad,  and  likewise  that  of 
7rie£&>  from  iru-cre-crSco,  is  very  plausible,  such  a  com- 
pound as  pi-sad  never  occurs  in  Sanskrit,  while  in 
the  Rig-veda  pi  does  not  occur  at  all  as  a  prepo- 
sition with  verbal  forms. 

It  would  be  better,  therefore,  to  wait  before  as- 
cribing to  Sanskrit  a  phonetic  law  according  to  which 
sisad  would  necessarily  become  sizd  and  sid,  par- 
ticularly as  in  Sanskrit  sid-ati  may  be  treated  as 
analogous  with  such  forms  as  dhip-s  for  "'di-dbh-s, 
*dhidps,  from  dabh  '. 

Restricted  Evidence  for  Phonetic  Rules. 

I  do  not  say  that  we  ought  therefore  to  reject 
altogether  the  derivation  of  nio?a  or  -pid,  or  even  of 
sidati ;  I  only  wish  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  evidence  on  which  some  of  our  so-called  phonetic 
laws  have  been  founded  is  very  limited,  and  on 
account  of  the  inevitable  scantiness  of  our  materials 
cannot  be  either  increased  or  strengthened.  Pho- 
netic laws,  or,  to  use  a  more  modest  name,  phonetic 
rules  or  observations,  if  once  established,  must,  no 
doubt,  be  implicitly  obeyed  ;  only  we  should  always 
try  to  remember  how  large  or  how  small  the  evi- 
dence is  on  which  each  single  phonetic  rule  has 
been  made  to  rest.  We  should  also  be  careful  not 
to  reject  at  once  any  etymology  if  it  offends  against 
one  or  the  other  of  our  many  phonetic  rules,  par- 
ticularly if  it  is  otherwise  quite  satisfactory  on 
material  as  well  as  on  formal  grounds. 

1  See  now  an  exhaustive  paper  on  si-zd-6  by  J.  v.  Kozwa- 
dowski,  in  Bezzenberger's  Beitrage,  vol.  xxi,  p.  147. 


302  DISCUSSIONS    ABOUT    GE02.  [chap. 

Discussions  about  @eog. 
One  of  the  first  lessons  I  learned  in  Comparative 
Philology  was  the  identity  of  Oeos  and  Sk.  deva. 
It  startled  me,  and  seemed  to  open  wide  vistas  of 
thought  to  my  mind.  No  one,  at  that  early,  some 
might  say  antediluvian  time,  allowed  himself  to 
doubt  that  both  0e6<s  and  deus  were  the  same  word 
as  deva  in  Sanskrit.  That  the  word  should  begin 
with  an  aspirate  in  Greek  and  with  a  media  in  Latin 
and  Sanskrit,  that  Sk.  e  (ai)  should  be  represented 
by  Greek  and  Latin  e,  seemed  a  matter  of  no  conse- 
quence whatever  ;  a  mere  reference  to  Sk.  dvar  =  Gr. 
6vpa  seemed  to  settle  it  (see  now  Brugmann,  §  480). 
We  know  better  now,  and  yet,  for  reasons  which 
I  shall  have  to  state  hereafter,  I  have  never  wavered 
in  my  belief  that  #eo<?  is  connected  with  deva  and 
deus,  and  the  whole  family  of  words  derived  from 
the  roots  div  or  dyu.     (See  p.  390.) 

Comparative  Philology  at  Leipzig  in  1838. 
I  well  remember  a  lecture  delivered  by  Dr.  Klee 
at  my  school,  the  Nikolaischule  at  Leipzig,  in  which 
he  not  only  showed  us  the  startling  similarities 
between  a  number  of  important  words  in  Greek, 
Latin,  and,  what  was  then  an  almost  unknown 
language,  in  Sanskrit,  but  wrote  on  the  blackboard 
the  equation  Zeus  and  Dyaus,  deos  and  deva.  He 
explained  to  us  at  the  same  time  the  wonderful 
regularity  with  which,  according  to  Grimm's  law, 
Sanskrit  and  Greek  and  Latin  words  were  modified 
in  German.  Was  it  possible,  we  said,  that  the  dark 
people  of  Benares,  who  were  then  mere  niggers  in 
the  eyes  of  German  schoolboys,  had  spoken  a  lan- 
guage like  that  of  Homer  and  Virgil,   that   their 


v]      COMPARATIVE  PHILOLOGY  AT  LEIPZIG  IN   1 838.       303 

words  for  father  and  mother  were  the  same  as  ours, 
that  they  had  a  literature  older  than  any  of  the 
literatures  of  Europe,  and   that  there  was  such  a 
continuity  between  their  language  and  ours  that, 
given  certain  phonetic  rules,  one  could  almost  have 
guessed  what  the  ancient  dwellers  on  the  Indus  or 
the  Ganges   would   have  said   for   father,   mother, 
sister  and  brother,  &c.  ?      Sometimes  the  Sanskrit 
words  were    nearly   the    same   as   our    own.     Thus 
same  is  in  Sanskrit  saina.     The  phonetic  rule  that 
initial  s  is  represented  by  h  in  Greek  and  in  Zend 
is  well  known,  and  we  thus  arrive  at  Zend  hama  and 
at  Greek  ojuo?,  without  any  further  trouble,  except 
that  we  must  remember  that  the  pronunciation  of 
the  a,  of  which  in  Sanskrit  we  know  nothing,  may 
under  certain  conditions  appear  in  Greek  as  a,  e,  or  o. 
These  things  were  to  us  like  a  new  revelation, 
like  a  new  history  of  the  world.     We  still  possessed 
the  power  of  being  amazed  at  what  seems  now  to 
most  people  almost  a  matter  of  course,  depending 
for  its  truth  on  the   mere  observation  of  phonetic 
rules.     We  saw  in  language  a  bond  that  held  all 
the  prominent  nations  of  the  world  together  more 
closely  than  blood  and  brain  or  anything  else  could 
have  done.     For  whatever  else  people  may  change, 
they  cannot  change  their   language,   though  they 
may  replace  it  by  another,  which  is  a  very  diiferent 
thing.     Nations    are    really   far    more   closely    held 
together  by  language  than  by  religion,  by  customs, 
by  literature,  or  by  forms  of  government,  far  more 
than  by  the  colour  of  their  skin,  their  blood,  their 
skull,  or  their  hair.     There  was  enthusiasm  in  those 
early  days  when  Bopp  and  Grimm  ruled  supreme. 
It  was  an  age  of  discovery  and  of  conquest,  almost 


304  COMPARATIVE  PHILOLOGY  AT  LEIPZIG  IN  1838.    [chap. 

a  crusading  age  for  the  recovery  of  the  sacred  cradle 
of  our  race,  and  every  new  word  that  could  be  proved 
to  have  been  uttered  by  the  as  yet  undivided  Aryan 
family,  was  like  discovering  an  old  uninjured  window 
in  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  cathedral,  through  which 
we  knew  that  our  ancestors  had  once  gazed  at  the 
world  without  and  at  the  world  above. 

Bopp,  Pott,  Grimm. 
It  is  often  supposed  that  in  those  early  days 
phonetic  rules  were  not  cared  for.  That  is  a  great 
mistake.  On  the  contrary,  the  labours  of  Bopp, 
Grimm,  and  Pott  had  their  very  foundation  in  the 
discovery  of  phonetic  rules.  What  is  called  Grimm's 
Law,  though  it  is  not  a  law  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word,  but  only  a  rule  of  observation,  was  like  the 
blast  of  a  trumpet  before  which  the  walls  of  classical 
prejudice  against  Comparative  Philology  fell  down 
flat.  Only  with  us  in  those  days  a  phonetic  rule 
was  an  historical  fact,  full  of  profound  meaning,  not 
a  mere  caveat  against  reckless  comparisons.  How, 
it  was  asked,  did  those  wonderful  changes  come 
about  which,  with  hardly  any  exceptions,  made 
a  Goth  call  his  cattle  faihu,  while  the  Hindu  said 
pasu  and  the  Roman  pecu  ?  Why  was  the  Sanskrit 
trma,  paurnus  in  Gothic,  dorn  in  Anglo-Saxon,  and 
Dorn  in  High-German  ?  Why  was  a  dog  called  svan 
in  Sanskrit,  kvcov  in  Greek,  can  is  in  Latin,  but  hunds 
in  Gothic  ? 

Grimm's  Law. 

It    is   well   known    that    Grimm    considered   the 

change  of  tenuis  to  aspirate  and  media,  of  aspirate 

to  media  and  tenuis,  and  of  media  to  tenuis  and 

aspirate,  as  a  kind  of  degeneration,  as  historical  and 


v]  grimm's  law.  305 

as  successive,  and  that  he  even  attempted  to  fix  the 
date  at  which  these  changes,  and  particularly  the 
change  from  Gothic  to  High-German,  had  taken 
place  l.  I  have  tried  to  show  that  physiologically 
such  changes  as  that  of  d  into  t  and  th  2  cannot 
possibly  be  considered  as  successive,  and  that  any- 
thing like  fixing  an  historical  date  for  such  a  change 
is  out  of  the  question.  We  must  learn  to  understand 
the  changes  of  the  Lautverschiebung  as  the  result 
of  parallel  dialectic  variety,  going  back  to  pre-historic 
times,  as  a  case  of  Nebeneinander,  not  Nacheinander. 
It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  Grimm's  Law 
seems  to  me  to  assume  its  most  interesting  character, 
as  disclosing  to  us  the  dialectic  stage  of  Aryan 
speech  long  before  it  broke  up  into  national  dialects, 
such  as  Sanskrit,  Greek,  or  Latin.  The  argument 
deduced  from  pre-Gothic  forms  in  Finnish  does  not 
seem  to  me  convincing  3,  as  it  requires  too  many  sup- 
positions of  which  we  know  nothing.  Nay,  it  seems 
to  me  to  prove  the  contrary  of  what  it  was  meant 
to  prove,  for  the  Gothic  stage  must  surely  have  been 
reached  long  before  any  Teutonic  words  could  have 
been  borrowed  by  the  Fins. 

Exceptions  to  Grimm's  Law. 
But  although  this  peculiar  phonetic  relation  be- 
tween the  great  Aryan  dialects,  known  under  the 
name  of  Lautverschiebung,  put  an  end  once  for  all 
to  the  old  test  of  etymological  comparisons,  namely, 

1  Gesch.  der  Deutschen  Sprache,  p.  483,  'hardly  before  the 
fifth  or  sixth  century.' 

2  The  terms  tenuis,  media,  and  aspirata,  and  such  letters 
as  t,  d,  th,  are  used,  of  course,  as  typical  only  of  the  actual  sounds 
in  each  language.     See  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  230,  note. 

3  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  257. 

VOL.  I.  X 


306  EXCEPTIONS    TO    GRIMM's    LAW.  [chap. 

similarity  of  sound,  and  tamed,  as  Grimm  said,  the 
wild  horses  of  etymology,  it  was  felt  at  the  same  time 
as  a  great  drawback  that  there  remained  so  large 
a  number  of  exceptions  which  seemed  to  neutralise 
its  beneficial  effect  on  etymological  research.  Ex- 
ceptions which  can  be  accounted  for  prove  a  rule ; 
exceptions  which  cannot  be  explained  invalidate  it. 
This  is  the  true  meaning  of '  except io  probat  regulam.' 

Lottner,  Grassmann. 

The  first  who  succeeded  in  eliminating  some  of 
these  exceptions  was  my  friend  Lottner,  then  in 
Ireland.  But  the  really  decisive  battle  was  fought 
by  a  man  who  was  by  profession  a  mathematician, 
and  had  most  advantageously  transferred  the  strict 
mathematical  method  to  his  linguistic  studies.  This 
was  Grassmann 1,  and  I  well  remember  the  relief 
which  his  article  in  Kuhn's  Zeitschrift  (vol.  xii)  gave 
us.  This  was  in  1863.  The  remedy,  however,  pro- 
posed by  him  was  such  that  it  roused  a  most  violent 
opposition  among  what  was  then  called  the  Old 
School.  Grassmann's  remedy  was  the  admission  of 
a  number  of  roots,  beginning  and  ending  with  an 
aspirate.  This  went  against  the  phonological  con- 
science of  Pott,  who  very  rightly  considered  such 
roots  as  monstrosities,  and  as  contrary  to  the  whole 
organism  of  Aryan  speech.  Most  scholars  at  that 
time  felt  the  same,  and  to  a  certain  extent  we  were 
right.  Such  roots  would  have  been  monsters  in 
actual  Sanskrit  as  well  as  in  actual  Greek.  But 
it  had  only  to  be  pointed  out  that  what  we  mean  by 
a  root  is  merely  a  postulate,  and  that  in  real  language 

1  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  268. 


v]  LOTTNEK,   GRASSMANN.  307 

one  of  the  two  aspirates  of  such  roots  would  of 
necessity  have  been  modified  and  appear  either 
as  media  or  tenuis.  After  this  explanation  the 
phonetic  wrath  even  of  Prof.  Pott  was  appeased. 
No  one  was  offended  any  longer  to  see  the  Gothic 
dags,  day,  connected  with  the  root  dah,  to  burn,  to 
shine,  or  (ni)dagha,  heat ;  because  dah  presupposed 
dhah  or  dhagh,  or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  because 
there  were  twin  forms  of  the  root,  appearing  in  reality 
as  either  dah  or  dhag.  Hence  dag-s,  day,  but  Te(j>-pa, 
ashes  (for  d4<j>pa),  and  Latin  fav-illa l. 

Verner's  Law. 
However,  there  still  remained  some  stragglers, 
and  to  have  called  them  also  back  to  the  ranks  was 
the  merit  of  a  young  scholar,  Verner,  whose  name 
has  since  become  familiar  as  the  discoverer  of 
Verner's  Rule,  commonly  called  Verner's  Law 2. 
This  discovery  showed  once  more  how  indispensable 
a  knowledge  of  Sanskrit,  and  in  this  case,  of  the 
Vedic  accent,  is  to  the  student  of  Comparative 
Philology.  Though  our  faith  in  phonetic  rules  was 
then  as  great  as  it  is  at  present,  we  could  never 
bring  ourselves  to  say  that  the  Gothic  fadar  was 
unconnected  with  Latin  pater  or  Sk.  pitar,  because 
it  ought  to  be  in  Gothic  fathar,  and  not  fadar. 
We  simply  accepted  the  facts  and  recognised  the 
breach  of  a  phonetic  law.  When  it  was  asked  at 
last  why  Sk.  pitar  appeared  in  Gothic  as  fadar 
instead  of  fathar,  whereas  bhratar,  brother,  appeared 
rightly  as   broth ar,  it  was  pointed   out   by  Verner 

1  See  Fick,  Indo-Germ.  Lexicon,  s.  v.  dliegho. 

2  K.  Z.,  xxiii,  p.  97  sq.,  1877. 

X  2 


308  verner's  law.  [chap. 

that  we  had  only  to  look  at  the  Vedic  accent  on 
pitar  and  bhratar  in  order  to  see  that  it  is  only 
when  preceded  by  an  originally  acute  vowel  that 
the  classical  tenuis  appears  in  Gothic  as  tenuis 
aspirate,  while  otherwise  it  becomes  in  the  middle 
of  words  a  media  \  These  discoveries,  however,  were 
important  to  us,  not  only  as  quieting  our  phonetic 
consciences  ;  they  were  even  more  important  as  open- 
ing new  and  distant  prospects  into  the  most  ancient 
history  of  language  and  of  man.  Roots  with  two 
aspirates,  supposing  we  ascribe  to  them  any  historical 
reality  at  all,  carry  us  back  into  a  period  which  must 
have  preceded  the  independent  settlement  of  Sans- 
krit and  the  other  Aryan  languages  ;  for  such  roots 
as  dhagh  had  become  impossible  before  the  phonetic 
structure  of  any  of  those  languages  had  been  finally 
settled.  That  the  Vedic  accent  should  account  for 
the  irregular  d  in  Gothic  fadar,  showed  how  inti- 
mately the  accent  was  connected  with  the  growth 
of  speech,  how  much  of  intention  there  was  in  it, 
and  how,  though  unobserved,  it  extended  its  influ- 
ence from  the  earliest  to  the  latest  periods  of  Aryan 
speech. 

Threefold  Differentiation  of  Roots. 
Such  has  been  the  progress  in  one  field  of  lin- 
guistic research.  It  has  reduced  the  apparently 
fortuitous  changes  of  tenuis  into  aspirate,  of  aspirate 
into  media,  and  of  media  into  tenuis,  to  something 
like  rule  and  order.  The  threefold  modification  of 
every  consonant  as  either  voiced  (media),  or  voiceless 
(tenuis),  or  aspirated  (voiced  or  voiceless),  is  now 
understood  to  have  been  in  the  beginning  inten- 

1  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  272  ;  Brugmann,  §  530. 


v]  THREEFOLD  DIFFERENTIATION  OF  ROOTS.  309 

tional,  that  is,  intended  for  the  differentiation  of 
roots  as  expressive  of  different  concepts.     If  there 
was  one  root  dar,  to  tear,  it  was  felt  necessary  to 
distinguish  it  from  another  root  dhar,  to  hold,  and 
from  a  third,  tar,  to  cross.     As  long  as  these  roots 
could  be  kept  distinct,  the  intention  of  language  was 
fulfilled,  but  if  dar  was  once  pronounced  dialectically 
without  the  voice  being  audible  (and  we  know  how 
common  this  is  even  now  in  certain  parts  of  Ger- 
many), then  tar  also,  the  place  of  which  had  been 
taken,  had  to  be  differentiated  again  by  Sacrur^?  or 
greater  stress.     It  had  to  be   shoved,  in  the  true 
sense  of  Lautverschiebung.     This  also  is  a  phonetic 
peculiarity,  at  first  hardly  observed,  as  for  instance 
in  the  Irish  pronunciation  of  English  tenues.    Lastly, 
the  aspirate,  whether  voiced  or  non-voiced,  having 
thus  been   pushed  out  of  its  rightful  jilace,  would 
have  to  be  distinguished  once  more  from  the  others 
in  the  only  way  that  was  left,  by  giving  up  its  rough 
aspiration  and  being  pronounced  as  an  unaspirated 
media,  thus  restoring  the  threefold  differentiation 
which  was  necessary  in  order  to  distinguish  three 
roots   which   in  their  intention  had  from  the   first 
been  conceived  as  distinct. 

Change  of  Place. 

So  much  for  what  Hindu  grammarians  would  call 
the  changes  in  the  Vahyaprayatna  of  sparsas,  checks 
or  contacts.  The  changes  affecting  the  sthanas  or 
places  of  the  consonants,  which  have  likewise  been 
reduced  to  much  greater  order  after  the  days  of 
Grimm  and  Bopp,  can  better  be  considered  after  we 
have  examined  the  peculiar  character  of  the  vowels, 
because  these  sthana-changes  are  often  the  result  of 


310  CHANGE    OF    PLACE.  [chap. 

the  vowels  by  which  certain  consonants  are  or  were 
followed  in  the  so-called  Ursprache. 

Schleicher's  Ursprache. 

Going  back  in  memory  over  the  successive  stages 
of  philological  research,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it 
was  the  question  of  the  Ursprache,  or  the  earliest 
undivided  Aryan  speech,  which,  owing  chiefly  to 
Schleicher's  personal  influence,  occupied  the  thoughts 
of  comparative  scholars  for  a  considerable  time. 

In  the  year  1861  had  been  published  the  first 
edition  of  Schleicher's  Compendium  der  Vergleich- 
enden  Grammatik,  followed  by  a  second  edition  in 
1866.  Schleicher  was  a  man  of  very  determined 
views,  and  he  was  supported  by  a  number  of  very 
determined  pupils.  His  leading  idea  was  that  out 
of  the  ten  historical  representatives  of  Aryan  speech, 
Old-Indian,  Old  Bactrian,  Old  Greek,  Latin,  Um- 
brian,  Oscan,  Old  Irish,  Old  Bulgarian,  Lituanian, 
and  Gothic,  it  was  possible  to  reconstruct  the  typical 
language  from  which  all  these  descendants  had 
sprung.  Though  the  idea  itself,  namely,  that  of 
a  uniform  typical  language,  was  a  mistake,  yet  in 
the  carrying  out  of  it  Schleicher  added  much  useful 
information  on  the  development  both  of  the  vowel 
and  the  consonantal  systems  in  the  different  mem- 
bers of  the  Aryan  family  of  speech. 

Dialects  antecedent  to  Classical  Speech. 
His  fundamental  idea,  however,  was  wrong,  because 
it  had  been  forgotten,  or  had  not  yet  been  perceived, 
that  dialects  come  before  classical  speech,  that  the 
natural  state  of  language  is  from  the  very  beginning 
dialectic,  that  in  the  history  of  language  variety  pre- 
cedes  uniformity,   wealth   poverty,   and  that  more 


v]      DIALECTS  ANTECEDENT  TO  CLASSICAL  SPEECH.        3II 

particularly  in  ancient  times  the  spreading  of  lan- 
guage is  parallel  rather  than  successive  (nebenein- 
ander,  not  nacheinander). 

This  sounds  strange  at  first,  because  what  are 
called  modern  dialects  are  clearly  corruptions  or 
modifications  of  a  nearly  uniform  type,  are  successive, 
and  not  merely  parallel.  Italian  and  French,  as 
Romanic  dialects,  presuppose  the  old  Latin,  as  spoken 
by  the  people,  and  would  be  unintelligible  without 
it.  That  these  dialects  contained  elements  which 
were  absent  in  classical  Latin,  was  a  later  discovery 
which  helped  to  trace  the  far-spreading  ramifications 
of  words  back  to  a  stratum  which  underlies  even  the 
classical  stratum  of  Italian  speech.  We  know  now 
that  it  is  in  the  nature  of  language  that  from  the 
very  beginning  it  should  develop  dialectic  variety. 
Unless  we  hold  that  language  was  created  and  re- 
vealed en  bloc,  it  follows  that  it  must  have  arisen 
in  great  variety,  in  dialect,  that  is,  really  in  dialogue, 
each  speaker  having  the  same  right,  and  freely  exer- 
cising that  right,  as  it  is  exercised  even  now  under 
the  tents  of  half-civilised  nomads l.  There,  as  I  have 
tried  to  show,  each  man,  woman,  and  child  contri- 
butes something  of  their  own  and  modifies  without 
hesitation  what  has  come  down  to  them  according  to 
their  own  way  of  hearing  and  pronouncing.  The  idea, 
therefore,  that  there  was  in  the  beginning  a  settled 
typical  form  of  Aryan  speech,  which  was  modified  in 
later  times  till  it  became  Sanskrit,  Greek,  Latin,  or 
Gothic,  is  incompatible  with  what  we  know  of  the 
nature  of  language.  We  know  now  that,  and  why,  every 
attempt  at  reconstructing  an  Ursprache  is  wrong  in 

1  Science  of  Language,  vol.  i,  p.  59. 


312    DIALECTS  ANTECEDENT  TO  CLASSICAL  SPEECH,     [chap. 

principle.  We  should  not  dream  of  reconstructing 
Latin  out  of  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish,  nor  Urger- 
manisch  out  of  Gothic,  Anglo-Saxon,  and  Old  High 
German  ;  not  even  Pre-vedic  Sanskrit  out  of  Vedic 
Sanskrit,  common  Sanskrit,  Prakrit,  and  the  spoken 
vernaculars  ;  much  less  Proto- Aryan  out  of  Greek, 
Latin,  Sanskrit,  and  Gothic.  All  this,  however, 
does  not  prevent  such  speculative  reconstructions 
as  are  found  in  Schleicher's  writings  from  being 
extremely  ingenious  and  even  instructive,  if  only 
they  teach  us  once  more  the  old  lesson  that  the 
ideal  may  everywhere  be  perceived  as  realised  in 
individual  phenomenal  variety,  but  that  it  is  beyond 
our  reach  in  its  typical  unity  and  perfection. 

Aryan  Vowels. 
It  might  be  argued  from  Schleicher's  point  of 
view  that  the  variety  of  Aryan  vowels  presupposes 
one  original  unmodified  vowel,  which  became  differ- 
entiated in  time  as  a,  i,  and  u.  If  historical  con- 
siderations prevented  scholars  like  Bopp,  Grimm, 
and  Schleicher  from  going  quite  so  far,  it  did  not  pre- 
vent them  and  their  pupils  from  taking  these  three 
modifications  as  the  original  typical  triad  underlying 
the  whole  vowel-system  of  the  Aryan  family  of 
speech.  Nor  would  I  deny,  much  as  our  views  have 
since  been  changed  as  to  the  historical  development 
of  the  vowels  of  the  Aryan  languages,  that  from  a 
purely  phonetic  point  of  view,  a,  i,  u  constitute  the 
typical  trichord  underlying  all  the  modulations  of 
vowels  in  the  historical  representatives  of  Aryan 
speech,  if  only  we  remember  that  such  postulates 
have  no  reference  to  the  historical  periods  of  Aryan 
speech. 


y]  ARYAN    VOWELS.  313 

It  is  well  known  that  in  Sanskrit  and  in  Sanskrit 
alone  this  simple  threefold  arrangement  of  vowels 
has  been  consistently  preserved.  We  have  in  Sans- 
krit 

a 

e  (a  +  \)/  \6  (a  +  u) 

ai(a  +  a  +  i)//  \&u  (a  +  a  +  u) 


A,  i,  u  exist  both  as  short  and  as  long.  The  vowel 
a,  if  strengthened,  becomes  a  ;  the  vowel  i,  if 
strengthened,  becomes  ai  (e) ;  u  becomes  au  (o). 
This  strengthening  of  vowels  is  by  Sanskrit  gram- 
marians called  Gu?ia  (strength),  while  the  length- 
ening of  ai  (e)  and  au  (o)  to  ai  and  au  is  called  by 
them  VWddhi,  or  increase.  Sanskrit  grammarians 
recognise  in  addition  two  vocalised  liquids,  namely, 
r  and  I,  which  can  form  a  syllable  by  themselves, 
and  are  then  called  vowels,  or  sonants,  ri  and  li. 
It  was  on  this  foundation  that  Bopp,  Grimm,  and 
Schleicher  tried  to  build  up  and  account  for  the 
vowel-system  of  all  the  Aryan  languages. 

It  was  soon  discovered,  however,  that  there  was 
one  important  difference  between  the  Sanskrit  vowel- 
system  and  that  of  the  other  Aryan  languages. 
Written  Sanskrit  had  no  short  e  and  o,  and  the 
question  was,  whether  Sanskrit  had  lost  these  vowels 
or  had  never  possessed  them.  The  Devanagari  alpha- 
bet is  certainly  deficient  in  signs  for  e  and  6  \  But 
what  is  the  age  of  the  Devanagari  alphabet  compared 
with  the  age  of  the  spoken  Sanskrit  1    Sanskrit  was 


See  Senart,  Mahavastu,  p.  xv. 


314  ARYAN    VOWELS.  [chap. 

spoken  long  before  the  time  of  the  first  inscriptions 
discovered  in  India,  nay,  it  probably  had  ceased  to 
be  spoken  before  their  time.     Nor  must  we  forget 
that  the  sounds  of  e  and  6  are  known  to  have  existed 
in  the  Vedic  Sanskrit,  and  that  they  likewise  exist 
in  Prakrit  and  Pali.     It  might  also  be  mentioned 
that  even  the  short  a,  of  which  e  and  0  are  phonetic 
modifications,  is  never,  except  initially,  written  in 
the  Devanagari  alphabet.    We  know,  in  fact,  nothing 
of  its   pronunciation   except  that   it  was   different 
from  that  of  all  the  other  vowels.     It  was,  as  we 
are  told  by  Panini,  samvWta,  closed,  not,  like  all  the 
other  vowels,  vivWta,  open.     Still  if  under  certain 
circumstances  short  a  had  been  liable  to  be   pro- 
nounced in  ancient  Sanskrit  in  a  very  special  way, 
such  as  e  and  o  in  Greek,  or  as  i  and  u  in  Arabic, 
when  written  without  any  vowel-marks,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  believe  that  the  very  minute  treatises 
on  #iksha  (pronunciation)  should  never  have  men- 
tioned it.     On  the  other  hand,  we  must  take  into 
consideration   that   the    change    of   gutturals    into 
palatals    in    Sanskrit,  like   that    of  gutturals   into 
dentals    in   Greek,    has    been   traced    back   to   the 
influence  of  a  following  more  or  less  palatalised  and 
palatalising  vowel,  that  is,  the  short  a  pronounced 
as  e  (not  as  a  or  o)  ;    so  that  if  we  see  the  same 
change  produced  in  Sanskrit  by  an  unwritten  vowel 
a,  we  can  hardly  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  in 
Sanskrit  also  some  of  the  unwritten  short  as  pos- 
sessed that  peculiar  palatal  colouring  which  almost 
mechanically  produces  the  change  of  a  preceding- 
guttural   into    a   palatal,    and   must    have   differed 
therefore   in   quality   from   other    short   as   which 
caused  no  such  change.     If  *panka  appears  as  irivre 


v]  ARYAN    VOWELS.  315 

in  Greek,  and  as  pafi&a  in  Sanskrit,  the  same  influ- 
ence which  changed  the  guttural  k  into  the  dental 
t  must  have  been  latent  in  the  Sanskrit  a,  which 
was  able  to  change  the  guttural  k  into  the  palatal 
k.  If  we  take  another  word,  such  as  kaksha,  in 
which  k  before  a  remains  unchanged,  we  see  that 
in  the  corresponding  word,  in  the  Latin  coxa,  the 
initial  guttural  is  followed,  not  by  the  palatalised, 
but  by  the  labialised  a,  the  vowel  o. 

That  in  Sanskrit  itself  short  a  was  liable  to  a 
thorough  palatalisation  and  labialisation,  we  see  in 
such  roots  as  tar,  tirati  by  the  side  of  tarati,  in  kar 
and  kuru,  phal,  phulla,  or  in  guru,  appearing  in  the 
comparative  as  gariyas.  In  Gothic  also  we  find  the 
modification  of  a  into  i  and  u,  while  the  vowel-signs 
e  and  6  are  absent.  Thus  we  learn  that  in  Sanskrit 
this  lesser  degree  of  palatalisation  or  labialisation, 
which  we  find  in  Greek  e  and  o,  though  graphically 
unrepresented,  is  yet  recognisable  by  us  as  having 
been  very  real,  namely  in  the  changes  produced  by 
it  on  a  preceding  k. 

I  was  surprised  and  pleased  to  find  that  Bopp 
had  long  ago  expressed  the  same  or  a  very  similar 
conviction  when  he  wrote  : — 

'  I  cannot  believe  that  in  the  language  of  the 
Brahmans,  when  it  was  a  vernacular  tongue,  the 
a-kara  had  always  the  power  of  a  short  a,,  and  that 
the  sounds  of  e  and  o  never  occurred  in  it ;  I  rather 
think  that  the  sign  used  for  the  short  a  was  put 
also  to  express  a  short  e  and  5  V 

This,  after  all,  would  not  have  been  worse  than  if 
we  use  the  same  graphic  sign  a  for  the  different  sounds 


1  Brugmann,  Morpholog.  Untersuchungen,  3,  97  seq. 


316  ARYAN    VOWELS.  [chap. 

in  and,  art,  ale,  and  all,  or  if  in  the  Devanagari 
alphabet  we  write  ^r  (g)  both  for  the  palatal  and 
the  so-called  linguo-palatal  media,  which  I  transcribe 
by  z  or  z. 

We  should,  however,  go  beyond  the  limits  of  our 
evidence  if  we  were  to  say,  as  some  have  maintained, 
that  the  final  a  of  paw&a  was  in  the  original  Aryan 
language  e,  before  it  became  &  in  Sanskrit.  All  that 
on  the  strength  of  the  evidence  before  us  we  are 
justified  in  maintaining  is  that  in  Sanskrit  certain 
short  a's  infected  a  preceding  guttural  with  a  palatal 
pronunciation,  and  that  these  were  the  same  a's 
which  in  Greek  appear  as  e.  The  change  of  k  into 
k  was,  of  course,  purely  mechanical,  not  dynamic,  and 
it  made  indeed  little  difference  whether  in  writing  it 
was  represented  by  a  modification  of  the  consonant 
or  of  the  vowel,  that  is,  by  ^  (£a)  or  by  /ce  or  re. 

Correspondence  of  Aryan  "Vowels. 

After  the  discovery  that  Sanskrit  also  possessed 
once,  besides  the  simple  vowels  a,  i,  u,  the  simple 
vowels  e  and  o,  just  like  Greek  and  Latin,  though 
they  were  left  without  graphic  representation,  and 
can  be  discovered  only  by  their  having  caused  or 
not  having  caused  certain  effects  on  the  preceding 
consonant,  there  followed  long  discussions  as  to  the 
exact  value  of  these  vowels  and  of  their  corre- 
spondents in  the  Western  and  Eastern  Aryan  lan- 
guages. Much  ingenuity  was  spent  on  this  subject 
by  scholars  such  as  Schleicher,  Curtius,  Amelung, 
Brugmann,  Osthoff,  Collitz,  Ascoli,  Fick,  Schmidt, 
and  others. 

I  must  confess  that  after  the  publication  of 
Curtius'  paper  on  the  Spaltung  des  A-lauts  in  1864, 


v]  CORRESPONDENCE    OF    ARYAN    VOWELS.  317 

I  was  prevented  for  many  years  by  more  pressing 
occupations  from  being  more  than  a  spectator  of 
these  animated  discussions.  I  must  also  confess 
that  for  a  time  these  discussions  were  carried  on  in 
a  tone  that  made  many  scholars  hesitate  to  join 
in  the  fray.  The  respectful  tone  towards  the  Guru, 
and  the  kindly  feeling  towards  the  old  father  Sokrates, 
seemed  for  a  time  to  have  become  extinct  among  the 
pupils  of  Curtius.  Still  it  is  pleasant  to  see  how, 
after  the  white  heat  of  the  controversy  has  subsided, 
there  remains  some  pure  metal,  while  many  erroneous 
opinions,  though  put  forward  at  the  time  with  great 
confidence,  were  burnt  to  ashes  and  blown  away. 

There  is  one  assertion,  however,  against  which 
I  have  always  protested,  and  must  protest  once 
more.  I  do  not  deny  that  we  owe  a  great  deal  to 
the  labours  of  some  of  Curtius'  pupils,  who  towards 
the  end  of  his  life  broke  away  from  him,  and  who 
were  represented  as  having  founded  a  completely 
new  school  of  Comparative  Philology.  That  seems 
to  me  a  total  misrepresentation.  Scholars  like 
Brugmann  and  Osthoff  were  proud  to  carry  on  the 
work  from  the  very  point  where  Bopp,  Grimm,  Pott, 
Benfey,  Schleicher,  Curtius,  and  others  had  left  it. 
There  was  no  break,  nor  was  there  an  entirely  new 
start. 

Unchangeability  of  Phonetic  Laws. 

The  two  principles  which  are  generally  repre- 
sented as  distinctive  of  this  new  school,  the  in- 
violability of  phonetic  rules,  and  the  sway  of  analogy, 
were  no  new  discoveries,  though  no  doubt  they  were 
carried  out  with  far  greater  stringency  and  deter- 
mination than  they  had  ever  been  before.     I  myself 


318  UNCHANGEABILITY    OF    PHONETIC    LAWS.       [chap. 

had  ventured  to  say  in  my  Lectures  on  the  Science 
of  Language,  1861,  that  phonetic  laws  were  as  un- 
changeable as  the  laws  which  regulate  the  circula- 
tion of  our  blood,  and,  like  Schleicher,  I  had  claimed 
on  that  very  ground  a  place  among  the  Physical 
Sciences  for  the  Science  of  Language.  It  is  true 
that  Curtius  and  his  school  admitted  sporadic  cases 
or  exceptions  to  phonetic  rules,  but  if  the  new  school 
proclaimed  phonetic  laws  to  be  as  unchangeable  as 
the  law  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  they  also  had  to 
add  a  clause,  'provided  that  all  the  circumstances 
are  the  same.'  With  this  proviso  Curtius  and  every- 
body else  would  have  readily  accepted  the  new 
dogma  of  immaculate  phonetics,  but  the  great  diffi- 
culty, the  finding  out  in  each  case  whether  all  the 
circumstances,  known  or  unknown,  were  exactly  the 
same,  would  have  remained  as  great  a  stumbling- 
block  as  ever. 

Analogy. 
The  second  principle,  the  influence  of  Analogy 
or  False  Analogy,  was  certainly  not  discovered,  as 
Mr.  Giles  says,  by  Whitney  in  1867  1.  I  had  fully 
discussed  it  in  all  its  bearings  in  1863  2.  I  had 
traced  it  back  to  the  levelling  influence  of  children, 
and  given  the  very  instances  which  Whitney  quotes, 
such  as  I  goed,  I  corned,  for  I  went,  I  came,  badder 
and  baddest  for  worse  and  worst.  I  never  like  to 
claim  priority,  but  considering  how  Whitney  went 
almost  step  by  step  over  the  same  ground  which 
I  had  traversed  in  my  Lectures,  considering  that  he 
admits  in  his  Preface  (p.  vii)  having  borrowed  illus- 

1  Giles,  Manual  of  Comparative  Philology,  p.  45. 

2  Science  of  Language,  ed.  1891,  vol.  ii,  p.  220. 


v]  ANALOGY.  319 

trations  from  my  Lectures,  and  considering  that  it 
would  be   difficult   to   borrow   illustrations   without 
borrowing  the  principles  that  had  to  be  illustrated, 
I  think  I  am  justified  in  stating  that  the  borrowing 
in  this  as  in  other  cases  was  at  all  events  not  on 
my  side.     It  is  never  pleasant  to  assert  the  right  of 
priority,  but  when  one  is  suspected  of  having  with- 
out sufficient  acknowledgment  borrowed  from  others 
what  others  have  borrowed  from  oneself,  one  surely 
has  a  right  to  appeal  to  dates.     Everybody  knows 
best  what  he  has  discovered  by  his  own  labour,  and 
most  people  know  what  they  have  borrowed  from 
others.     The  violent  language  which  Whitney  used 
whenever  he  wished  to  accentuate  his  independence 
or  his  dissent  from  my  views,  has  not  prevented 
other  scholars  from  discovering  his  indebtedness  to 
my  volumes,  an  indebtedness  that  goes  far  beyond 
mere  illustrations ;  but  while  I  feel  bound  for  my 
own  protection  to  make  this  chronological  correction, 
I  am  the  very  last  to  claim  any  share  in  the  great 
discoveries  which  were  made  by  Brugmann,  Osthoff, 
and  others  in  applying  this  principle  of  Analogy  to 
every  minute  change  in  the  growth  of  language. 

Whether  we  call  this  important  element  in  the 
growth  of  language  Analogy  or  False  Analogy  makes 
little  difference,  so  long  as  we  understand  what  we 
mean.  It  may  be  quite  true,  as  I  said  in  a  note 
(Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  221),  that  what  we  call 
'False  Analogy,'  or  what  the  ancients  sometimes  called 
'Anomaly,'  is  perfectly  legitimate,  that  children  have 
an  immemorial  right  to  their  irregularities,  and 
peasants  to  their  vulgarities.  I  do  not  deny  the  prin- 
ciple of  liberte  and  egalite  in  language,  but  that 
does  not  take  away  our  right  of  treating  such  forms  as 


320  ANALOGY.  [chap. 

essendo  or  suntemu  as  blunders  from  a  Latin  point 
of  view,  or,  in  more  civil  language,  as  false  analogies. 

Importance  of  Sanskrit. 
It  has  also  been  supposed  that  through  the  dis- 
coveries of  this  new  school  of  Comparative  Philology 
the  authority  of  Sanskrit  as  the  most  important 
member  of  the  Aryan  family  of  speech  has  been 
much  reduced.  It  seems  to  me,  on  the  contrary, 
that  Schleicher's  old  dictum  that  the  more  Eastern 
an  Aryan  language  the  more  primitive  its  gram- 
matical organism,  after  having  been  fiercely  attacked 
as  high  treason,  has  met  with  new  and  very  strong 
support  in  the  very  school  that  was  supposed  to 
have  refuted  it.  The  liability  to  vocalisation  in- 
herent in  the  r,  the  1,  and  the  nasals,  by  means  of 
which  so  many  difficulties  have  lately  been  solved, 
was  clearly  indicated  and  more  than  indicated  in 
Pacini's  Grammar.  Still  more  surprising  and  im- 
portant in  its  far-reaching  ramifications  was  the 
discovery  of  Verner  that  it  is  the  primitive  Vedic 
accent  which  regulates  the  phonetic  and  grammatical 
development  of  the  Western  languages  in  their 
minutest  detail.  It  is  sometimes  difficult  to  believe 
in  the  continuity  of  the  working  of  the  accent  from 
the  earliest  to  the  latest  formations  of  Aryan  speech, 
and  still  more  difficult  to  understand  it.  But  nothing 
teaches  us  more  forcibly  the  solidarity  of  Aryan 
speech,  and  indirectly  the  solidarity  of  those  who 
spoke  and  who  speak  it,  than  this  working  of  the 
accent,  as  the  vital  principle,  nay,  as  the  very  soul 
of  language,  whether  spoken  in  India  or  in  Germany, 
whether  thousands  of  years  ago  or  at  the  present 
moment. 


/ 


v]  THE    VEDIC    ACCENT.  32 1 

The  Vedic  Accent. 

In  these  researches  into  the  working  of  the  accent, 
I,  like  most  students  of  Pacini,  have  always  fol- 
lowed in  the  footsteps  of  Benfey.  Much,  as  I  have 
often  said,  might  have  been  learnt  from  the  ancient 
Hindu  grammarians,  nay,  many  a  discovery  need 
not  have  been  made  for  a  second  time,  as  it  lay 
ready  at  hand  in  the  $astra  of  Panini,  if  only 
rightly  interpreted.  The  very  nature  of  the  accent, 
which  to  us  seems  to  be  stress,  but  which,  as  I 
pointed  out  (in  1869),  was  originally  pitch,  was 
clearly  indicated  by  such  names  as  svara,  tone, 
udatta,  raised,  anudatta,  not  raised.  The  Pratisa- 
khya,  which  I  edited  and  translated  in  1869,  leaves 
no  doubt  on  this  point,  as  little  as  the  Greek  name 
of  TTpocrcohla,  i.e.  by -song,  accentus,  though  the 
transition  from  this  originally  musical  to  a  stress 
accent  is  a  phase  in  the  history  of  language  which 
still  awaits  a  satisfactory  explanation. 

Weak  and  Strong  Terminations. 

Bopp's  important  discovery,  for  instance,  that 
certain  case-terminations  are  what  he  calls  weak 
and  others  strong,  that  strong  terminations  require 
weak,  weak  terminations  strong  bases,  was  clearly 
exhibited  in  Pacini's  grammar.  And  not  only  were 
the  facts  correctly  stated  there,  but  the  only  true 
explanation  of  them  was  given,  an  explanation  first 
put  forward  by  Benfey,  and  now,  I  believe,  accepted 
by  everybody.  All  case-terminations  and  all  suf- 
fixes marked  in  Pacini's  grammar  by  a  p  (pit)  are 
meant  to  be  anudatta  (Paw.  Ill,  1,4),  that  is,  they 
have  no   acute  accent,  and  either   leave  the  base 

VOL.  I.  Y 


322  WEAK    AND    STRONG    TERMINATIONS.  [chap. 

unaffected  or  allow  it  to  be  strengthened.  This  is 
the  general  rule  applying  to  nominal  bases  in  a,  i, 
u,  and  to  a  number  of  other  bases  given  in  our 
grammars  as  regular  or  unchanging.  Then  follow 
the  exceptions  (Pa/i.  VI,  i,  166  seq.),  that  is,  the 
bases  after  which  certain  terminations  retain  the 
acute,  and  therefore  produce  weakening  of  the  base. 
Historically  the  process  was  probably  the  reverse, 
but  that  does  not  concern  a  grammarian  like  Panini. 
He  gives  us  simply  the  facts  of  language,  though 
by  classifying  them  he  enables  us  to  see  their  evolu- 
tion. If  we  consider  that  it  was  the  very  nature  of 
the  accent  to  fall  on  the  modifying,  and  therefore 
for  the  time  the  most  interesting  and  most  important 
syllable,  we  shall  easily  understand  why  the  modi- 
fying terminations  of  nouns  required  the  accent. 
These  terminations  expressed  the  local,  temporal, 
modal,  or  causal  relations  of  the  members  of  a  sen- 
tence ;  they  required  therefore  to  be  emphasised, 
that  is,  accentuated.  Only  the  terminations  which 
retained  least  of  their  originally  local  character, 
which  had  in  fact  become  purely  logical,  marking 
no  more  than  the  subject  and  the  object  of  a  sen- 
tence, did  not  require  this  emphasis,  or  had  surren- 
dered it,  if  they  ever  possessed  it.  Hence  in  the 
case  of  a  limited  number  of  ancient  and  therefore 
irregular  nouns,  the  terminations  of  the  nom.  and 
ace.  sing.,  of  the  nom.  and  ace.  dual,  and  of  the 
nom.  plur.,  are  unaccented  or  weak,  and  leave  the 
base  unmodified,  nay,  in  some  cases  cause  it  to  be 
strengthened.  This  is  the  general  principle,  and 
perfectly  intelligible  in  its  generality.  Benfey  un- 
derstood this  principle  clearly  ;  only  treating  lan- 
guage  historically,  he    saw  that  what  seem  to  us 


v]  WEAK    AND    STRONG    TERMINATIONS.  323 

exceptions  constitute  really  the  original  state  of 
things,  and  reveal  the  underlying  principle  which 
is  lost  in  the  constantly  increasing  class  of  regular 
nouns. 

I  well  remember,  many  years  ago,  when  on  a  visit 
at  Berlin,  placing  these  facts  in  a  conversation 
before  my  old  teacher,  Prof.  Bopp,  before  he  had 
published  his  book,  On  the  System  of  Accentuation 
(1854),  though  being  unable  to  convince  him  of  the 
true  character  of  the  accent,  so  far  as  it  was  meant 
for  differentiation  or  emphasis,  and  its  purely  me- 
chanical working,  so  far  as  its  phonetic  influence 
was  concerned.  I  mention  this  simply  in  order  to 
show  how  natural,  nay,  how  inevitable  this  view  of 
the  working  of  the  accent  in  Vedic  Sanskrit  was 
to  any  one  acquainted  with  Pacini's  grammar,  and 
with  the  practical  application  of  his  rules  to  nominal 
and  verbal  bases  in  the  Veda.  Every  page  of 
Sayawa's  commentary  is  filled  with  applications  of 
the  rules  of  Pacini  to  the  verbal  and  nominal  forms 
occurring  in  the  Veda. 

The  Explanation   of  the  Ablaut. 

And  what  applies  to  declension  and  the  Pada-, 
Anga-,  and  Bha-bases  l  of  nouns,  applies  with  equal 

1  M.  M.,  Sanskrit  Grammar,  sec.  ed.,  §  179.  I  look  upon  the 
Pada-base  as  the  true  base,  on  the  Ahga-base  as  strengthened, 
and  the  Bha-base  as  weakened.  We  find  the  Pada-base  always 
used  in  compounds.  I  should  call  the  Pada-base  the  Level-base 
(Grundstufe),  the  Ahga-base  the  High-base  (Hochstufe),  and 
the  Bha-base,  where  it  exists,  the  Low-base  (Tiefstufe),  though 
it  would  be  better  perhaps  to  retain  the  Sanskrit  technical 
terms.  The  High-  and  Low-bases  admit  of  subdivision,  and  we 
might  therefore  distinguish  between  a  Highest  and  a  Lowest  base, 

Y  2 


324  THE    EXPLANATION    OF    THE    ABLAUT.  [chap. 

strength  to  conjugation  and  the  weakening  and 
strengthening  of  verbal  bases  or  roots.  This  weaken- 
ing or  strengthening  of  verbal  roots  was  likewise 
perfectly  well  known  to  the  ancient  Sanskrit  gram- 
marians. Only  when  Bopp  spoke  of  strong  and 
weak  terminations  requiring  Guna  or  no  Guna  of 
the  radical  vowel,  Hindu  grammarians  simply  marked 
a  number  of  terminations  with  the  p,  which  was  meant 
to  show  that  these  terminations  had  no  accent,  and 
that  therefore  the  root  retains  before  them  its  accent 
and  its  full  strength.  Here,  no  doubt,  it  would  be 
very  difficult  to  analyse  the  grounds  on  which  the 
linguistic  or  logical  conscience  of  the  Aryas  was 
induced  to  consider  some  terminations  as  weak  (un- 
accented) and  others  as  strong  (accented).  And  here 
too  we  have  to  admit  that  the  number  of  exceptions 
is  very  great,  but  that  nevertheless  the  ancient 
grammarians  were  right  in  laying  down  their  general 
principle  as  to  the  accent  causing  the  strengthening 
or  weakening  of  the  verbal  base.  If  we  say  in 
Sanskrit : — 

dvesh-mi,  but  dvish-mas, 

dvek-shi,  dvish-Ma, 

dvesh-fi,  dvish-anti, 

the  cause  was  the  accent,  which  had  forsaken  the 
terminations  of  the  singular,  but  remained  on  those 
of  the  plural.  Why,  we  cannot  tell,  perhaps  we 
have  no  right  to  ask,  considering  the  sovereign 
power  that  belongs  to  the  framers  and  speakers 
of  every  language,  the  influence  of  analogy  and  of 
frequent  repetition. 

calling  them,  when  necessary,  the  Long-base  (Dehnstufe)  and  the 
Loss-base  (Sehwimclstufe). 


V]       THE  EXPLANATION  OF  THE  ABLAUT.      325 

We  may  perhaps  in  the  throwing  of  the  accent 
on  the  modifying  syllables  discover  the  wish  and 
will  of  the  speakers,  but  it  was  nevertheless  a  mis- 
take on  the  part  of  Grimm  to  assign  a  dynamic 
character  to  these  changes  of  the  nominal  and  verbal 
bases.  It  is  natural  that  Semitic  scholars  should 
represent  the  vowel  changes  such  as  Katala,  Kutila, 
&c.,  as  dynamic  changes  of  a  root  KTL,  because  of 
them  no  mechanical  cause  has  yet  been  discovered  ; 
but  that  Grimm,  who  had  himself  established  the 
purely  mechanical  nature  of  the  Umlaut,  the  change 
of  Vater  to  Vater,  Mutter  to  Mutter,  &c,  should  not 
have  discovered  a  similar  mechanical  character  in 
such  changes  of  Ablaut,  as  I  bind  and  I  bound,  veda 
(oTSa)  and  vidma  (t'Sjuev),  Ich  weiss  and  wir  wissen, 
is  strange.  It  shows,  however,  once  more  the  truth 
of  Schleicher's  old  dictum  as  to  the  supreme  useful- 
ness of  Eastern  Aryan  grammar  for  a  proper  under- 
standing of  Western  Aryan  speech,  when  we  see  how 
the  Ablaut  which  in  the  eyes  even  of  a  Grimm 
remained  something  mysterious,  became  as  clear  as 
daylight  in  Sanskrit.  If  we  ask  Sanskrit  gram- 
marians why  they  say  in  the  perfect : — 

veda  =  ol8a,  vidma  =  'lo-fiev  (<V€")> 

vettha  =  olada,  vida  =  lore, 

veda  =  oiSf,  vidiir  =  i'owt, 

their  answer  would  be,  because  the  terminations  of 
the  singular  are  pit,  have  an  indicatory  p,  have 
therefore  no  accent,  and  do  not  weaken  the  root. 
Why  certain  terminations  have  the  accent  and 
others  have  not,  we  can  only  guess.  But  whatever 
the  cause  of  the  unaccented  character  of  the  termi- 
nations of  the  singular  or  of  the  accented  character 
of  the  terminations  of  the  plural  and  dual  may  be, 


326  THE    EXPLANATION    OF    THE    ABLAUT.  [chap. 

their  action  on  the  base  is  now  seen  to  be  purely 
mechanical.  This  helps  us  to  an  understanding  of 
that  mysterious  process,  the  facts  of  which  had  for 
the  first  time  been  collected  and  classified  by  Grimm, 
though  they  remained  unaccounted  for  till  scholars 
began  to  understand  the  meaning  of  pit  and  nit. 

And  what  applies  to  the  personal  terminations  ap- 
plies of  course  with  equal  force  to  the  verbal  suffixes 
which  form  the  verbal  bases  of  the  Bhu  and  Tud,  Div 
and  Kur- classes.  Here  too,  if  the  so-called  Vikara^a 
is  pit,  the  root  is  strengthened.  Thus  budh  with 
vikarana  sap,  becomes  bodha  in  bodhami,  while  tud, 
which  takes  the  apit  vikarana  sa,  remains  tuda,  as  in 
tudami.  All  this  is  perfectly  clear,  if  we  adopt  the 
phraseology  of  the  Hindu  grammarians,  and  follow 
both  the  general  rules  and  the  exceptions  which  they 
have  so  carefully  collected. 

Weakening  and  Strengthening  of  Base. 

We  need  not  enter  into  the  protracted  discussion 
which  followed  this  discovery,  namely,  whether  the 
pit-terminations  caused  a  strengthening,  or  the  nit, 
i.  e.  ap it-terminations,  a  weakening  of  the  root ; 
whether  in  fact  the  original  and  the  more  ancient 
form  of  the  Sanskrit  root  was  budh  raised  by  Guna 
to  baudh,  i.  e.  bodh,  or  whether  it  was  baudh,  i.  e. 
bodh,  weakened  to  budh.  I  fully  recognise  the 
ingenious  arguments  by  which  on  the  strength  of 
such  forms  as  sarati  and  srita,  patati  and  paptur, 
we  are  asked  to  accept  baudh,  not  budh,  as  the 
original  root  ;  nor  do  I  see  any  harm  in  speaking  of 
beudh  or  ttzvO  as  the  standard  form  of  their  verbal 
bases.  All  I  can  say  is  that  language  is  not  easily 
driven  into  a  corner  by  argument.     It  does  not  claim 


v]  WEAKENING    AND    STRENGTHENING    OF    BASE.      327 

to  be  consistent  throughout,  but  sends  us  away  again 
and  again  with  a  simple  '  car  tel  est  mon  plaisir.' 
It  has  never  been  proved  that  chronologically  baudh 
was  anterior  to  budh,  or  ved  to  vid ;  but  even  if  it 
had,  it  would  still  be  impossible,  from  a  purely  pho- 
netic point  of  view,  to  treat  baudh  as  more  original 
than  budh,  or  vaid  as  more  primitive  than  vid.  Those 
who  look  upon  roots  as  simply  the  last  residue  of 
grammatical  analysis,  would  never  stop  at  baudh  in 
their  phonetic  analysis,  but  would  postulate  budh 
as  well  as  sri  as  the  last  remnants,  or  as  the  roots. 
Those  who  look  upon  roots  as  occurring  in  actual 
speech,  would  appeal  to  such  words  as  dirgha-sru(t), 
ushar-budh,  goshu-yudh,  as  showing  the  simplest 
forms  of  the  roots  sru,  6udh,  yudh.  As  for  myself 
I  should  never  call  budh  or  yudh  in  such  compounds 
roots,  because,  though  they  are  outwardly  identical 
with  the  roots  budh  and  yudh,  they  are  intended 
dynamically  as  real  parts  of  speech. 

If  we  reason  consistently  we  are  driven  to  admit 
that  a  root,  qua  root,  can  never  appear  on  the  sur- 
face of  language. 

For  practical  purposes,  however,  it  seems  to  me 
far  better,  when  treating  of  Sanskrit,  to  speak  of 
a  root  budh  than  of  a  root  baudh  or  beudh,  or 
vaid  and  veid.  Sanskrit  grammar  knows  of  no  such 
roots,  and  each  language  has  a  right  to  its  own 
grammatical  terminology  and  its  own  phonetic  idio- 
syncrasies. As  Sanskrit  scholars  we  must  continue 
to  speak  of  tip  and  atip,  of  Gu?ia  (strengthening), 
VWddhi  (lengthening),  and  Samprasara?ia  (contrac- 
tion), though  in  Comparative  Grammar  we  may,  if 
we  like,  adopt  such  terms  as  Hochstufe,  Mittelstufe, 
Tiefstufe,  Schwiichung,  Dehnung,  and  all  the  rest. 


328      WEAKENING  AND  STRENGTHENING  OF  BASE.      [chap. 

The  difficulty  in  introducing  a  new  terminology  is 
to  get  it  generally  adopted,  and  to  make  it  quite 
clear  how  it  corresponds  with  the  terminology  which 
it  is  meant  to  supplant. 

Aiiga-,  Pada-,  and  Bha-bases  would  be  accurately 
represented  by  Hoch-,  Mittel-,  and  Tiefstufe,  but 
Gmia  and  Yriddhi  would  require  a  far  more  accurate 
definition  in  Sanskrit.  What  we  call  VWddhi  seems 
to  me  in  its  persistent  grammatical  character  to  be 
peculiar  to  Sanskrit,  though  analogous  formations 
occur  sporadically  in  other  Aryan  languages  also. 
I  doubt  also  if  this  VWddhi  depends  purely  on  the 
accent,  and  whether  it  is  not  rather  a  lengthening 
produced  by  certain  derivative  suffixes.  Thus  the 
long  a  in  tudami,  and  the  short  a  in  tudasi  are  not 
dependent  on  the  accent,  as  little  as  the  o  of  (jxEpo/xev, 
compared  with  the  e  of  fyipere.  The  change  of  buddha 
into  bauddha,  of  veda  into  vaidika,  of  pata  into  pata, 
is  a  lengthening  always  produced  by  certain  suffixes, 
but  not  by  the  accent  which  produces  strengthening, 
and  not  mere  lengthening.  Taking  all  in  all,  I  should 
certainly  prefer  to  accept  the  roots  in  the  form  in 
which  they  are  given  by  Sanskrit  grammarians,  nor 
can  I  accept  De  Saussure's  argument  as  clinching 
the  matter.  '  If  we  accept  buclh,'  he  says,  '  as  the 
root,  we  must  call  pt  by  the  same  name,  because 
whenever  we  find  budh,  as  for  instance,  in  bubudhur, 
we  find  pt  as  in  paptur  ! '  Now,  first  of  all,  I  should 
by  no  means  be  frightened  by  a  root  PT,  in  fact 
I  should  consider  it  as  an  excellent  representative  of 
the  ideal  state  of  a  root,  just  as  in  Hebrew  we  call 
KTL  a  root,  and  not  Katala.  Secondly,  before  we 
accept  this  conclusion,  it  is  necessary  to  classify  the 
roots  as  given  in  Sanskrit,  and  to  distinguish,  as  in  the 


v]  WEAKENING   AND    STRENGTHENING    OF    BASE.       329 

case  of  nominal  bases,  at  least  three  classes,  (i)  roots 
that  can  be  both  weakened  and  strengthened  ;  (2) 
roots  that  can  be  strengthened,  but  not  weakened ; 
(3)  roots  that  can  be  weakened,  but  not  strengthened. 
Budh  is  a  root  that  can  never  be  weakened,  be- 
cause its  u  is  radically  essential.    Change  it  to  a  or  i 
and  you  destroy  the  root.     Hence  bubudbur  could 
not  be  weakened  to  bubdhur,  like  papatur  to  paptur. 
The  same  applies  to  many  roots,  such  as  khad,  knas, 
taksh,  tard,  which  form  £akhadur,  Aaknasur,  tata- 
kshur,  and  tatardur,  because  if  they  dropped  their  a, 
they  would  for  an  Indian  mouth  at  least  cease  to  be 
pronounceable.    Why  not  continue  therefore  to  call 
pat  the  root,  or,  if  necessary,  the  Middle-stage,  or 
better  still  the  Level-stage,  and  in  roots  like  pat  to 
treat    pat  (pat)  as  the  High-stage,  and  pt   as  the 
Low-stage,  or   Loss-stage?     Some   roots    can  have 
no  Lower-stage,  such    as,  for  instance,  taksh,  tud, 
budh  ;  some  can  have  no  Higher-stage,  such  as  dim, 
stha,  da,  at  least  in  Sanskrit ;  some  have  both,  such 
as  #an  in  #an#anti,  in  t/ana  (birth)  and  in  ga,gi~ie.    In 
the  case  of  roots  having  medial  or  final  sonant  r  (^), 
we  must  remember  that  this  vowel  may  represent  in 
Sanskrit  both  er  and  re.     This  er  appears  weakened 
in  sWta,   strengthened  in  sarati.     The  re   of  greh 
appears  weakened  in  gnhwati,  gWhita,  strengthened 
in  agrahit.     If  we  include  VWddhi,  we  should  also 
include    Lopa,  and  we  might  then  call  the  ar  in 
asarshlt  and  the   ra  in  #agraha  VWcldhi  or  Long- 
stage  (Langstufe),  and  the  Lopa  as  in  sasrur  the 
Loss-stage  (Schwundstufe).     I  do  not  see  that  the 
admission  of  roots,  such  as   baudh  (bodh)  or  vaid 
(ved)  or  sar,  would  simplify  in  the  least  the  phonetic 
process  which  we  have  to  explain,  and  I  think  that 


330     WEAKENING  AND  STRENGTHENING  OF  BASE.      [CHAP. 

the  native  grammarians  of  India  have  set  us   an 
example  which  we  should  do  well  to  follow. 

We  can  easily  understand  why  in  the  weakening 
of  a  base  like  pat  to  pt,  the  udatta  on  the  following 
syllable  led  to  the  swallowing  of  the  a  in  the  radical 
syllable,  but  why,  as  we  are  now  told,  the  same 
influence  should  dissolve  a  diphthong  with  its  com- 
ponent elements  and  leave  us  i  and  u  instead  of  e 
(ai)  and  6  (au)  is  more  difficult  to  understand.  Nor 
would  Koegel's  suggestion  that  e  became  1  and  after- 
wards 1,  that  6  became  u  and  afterwards  u,  help  us 
much,  either  from  an  historical  or  from  a  phonetic 
point  of  view.  There  are  elsewhere  no  such  inter- 
mediate stages  in  Sanskrit  as  i,  u  between  e,  6  and 
I,  ii,  for  Saussure's  derivation  of  puta  from  peuata  has 
never  been  proved,  while  Sk.  guhati  can  hardly  be 
explained  as  a  weakening  of  *gohati,  because,  so  far 
as  we  know,  gohati  never  existed.  Nor  can  such 
isolated  cases  as  the  Gothic  lukan,  sugan,  and 
supan  account  for  the  far  more  widely-extended 
action  of  the  accent  on  the  radical  vowel  in  Sans- 
krit. That  i  and  u,  if  pronounced  with  high  pitch, 
should  approach  the  sound  of  e  (ai)  and  6  (au),  is 
intelligible  phonetically,  at  all  events  far  more  so 
than  the  dissolving  of  the  diphthongs  e  and  6  into 
their  component  parts  and  the  abstraction  of  their 
first  element,  the  a.  Even  in  modern  languages  an 
accented  i  is  apt  to  become  ei,  and  u  au,  as  in  line, 
now  pronounced  lain,  or  hus,  now  pronounced  haus. 
The  fact  that  the  ancient  grammarians  of  India  who 
spoke  and  heard  the  language  which  they  analysed, 
should  have  been  led  by  what  they  heard  with  their 
ears  to  the  admission  of  budh  being  strengthened 
(guwa)  to  baudh,  but  not  of  baudh  being  weakened 


v]  WEAKENING  AND  STRENGTHENING  OF  BASE.  33 1 

to  budh,  ought  likewise  to  carry  a  certain  weight 
in  a  question  !  on  which  the  two  scales  seem  other- 
wise to  remain  on  a  perfect  level.  We  owe  far  too 
much  to  the  ancient  grammarians  of  India  and  to 
their  marvellous  observations  on  the  minutest  action 
of  the  accent  on  the  vowels  of  roots  to  allow  an 
historical  term  like  that  of  Guwa  to  be  entirely 
swept  away. 

As  to  the  lengthening  of  u  in  guhati,  why  should 
it  be  treated  differently  from  that  of  the  i  in  divyati 
or  of  a  in  5am,  tarn,  dam,  sram,  bhram,  ksham,  klam, 
and  mad,  which  all  lengthen  their  a  to  a  (Paw.  VII, 

3,  74). 

True  Value  of  Phonetics. 

It  has  often  been  said  of  late  that  these  minute 
phonetic  researches  have  absorbed  the  interest  of 
students  of  language  far  too  much,  that  they  are, 
after  all,  the  means  only  for  higher  objects,  and  that 
there  is  danger  here  as  elsewhere  of  the  means  being 
mistaken  for  the  end.  There  is,  no  doubt,  some  truth 
in  this.  As  often  happens,  what  was  originally  an 
instrument  only  in  the  hand  of  experienced  operators 
has  developed  so  many  new  aspects,  has  opened  so 
many  new  questions,  and  roused  so  many  new  in- 
quiries, that  after  a  time  it  has  come  to  rank  as  an 
independent  science. 

Little  did  I  dream  when  I  was  blamed  by  Benfey 
and  others  for  having  for  the  first  time  introduced 
Phonetics  into  Comparative  Philology,  for  having 
insisted  in  my  Lectures  (1861)  on  the  necessity 
of  making  Phonetics  the  very  foundation  of  that 
science,   that    in   so    short    a   time    the    foundation 

1  Cf.  Benfey,  0.  und  0.,  iii,  p.  24. 


332  TRUE    VALUE    OF    PHONETICS.  [chap. 

would  have  risen  into  so  magnificent  a  structure 
as  to  overshadow  almost  the  whole  Science  of 
Language  itself.  Certainly  the  discoveries  that 
have  heen  made  in  these  subterraneous  regions  of 
language  are  most  amazing.  The  minute  coinci- 
dences, the  continuous  parallelisms  in  the  changes 
of  vowels  and  consonants  are  often  almost  beyond 
belief ;  and  yet,  after  the  most  minute  examination, 
beyond  the  reach  of  doubt.  And  if  then  we  con- 
sider that  these  unvarying  changes  in  vowels  and 
consonants  take  place  in  a  body  which  has  hardly 
any  material  coherence,  which  consists  of  fleeting 
breath  uttered  without  restraint  by  millions  of 
individuals  under  constantly  varying  circumstances, 
which  for  centuries  has  continued  under  no  control  of 
a  permanent  literature,  or  of  schools  and  academies, 
the  fact  that  an  accent  as  once  pronounced  in  Vedic 
Sanskrit  determines  our  saying  Vater,  Mutter,  but 
Bruder,  seems  at  first  to  require  a  greater  effort  of 
faith  than  almost  any  miracle.  If  we  remember  how 
hardly  any  vowel  is  pronounced  really  in  the  same 
way  by  different  speakers,  how  local  dialects  even 
in  modern  times  play  havoc  among  our  vowels,  how 
the  newspaper-boys  along  the  stations  of  the  G.W. 
Railway  shout  piper  instead  of  paper,  which  paper 
was  originally  the  Egyptian  word  for  papyrus,  we 
hesitate  before  we  can  believe  that  every  vowel  in 
Sanskrit,  Greek,  Latin,  Gothic  is  really  what  ac- 
cording to  unchangeable  laws  it  ought  to  be x, 
and  that  the  slightest  vowel-change,  say  of  Latin 
mater  into  moter,  would  break  the  relationship  of 

1  See  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  1894,  vol.  i,  p.  158, 
on  dead  and  death. 


y]  TRUE    VALUE    OF    PHONETICS.  333 

the  names  for  mother  as  between  Latin  and  the  rest 
of  the  Aryan  family. 


The  Becoming  of  Letters. 

Nay,  we  must  go  even  a  step  further.  We 
generally  look  upon  the  differences  in  vowels  and 
consonants  when  occurring  in  the  same  words  in 
Sanskrit,  Greek,  Latin,  and  Gothic  as  changes  due 
to  evolution.  We  speak  of  the  t  in  the  Sanskrit 
word  bhratar  becoming  th  in  Gothic  brothar,  of  Sk. 
dh  becoming  Gothic  d,  and  of  Sanskrit  d  becoming 
Gothic  t.  This  may  be  useful  for  practical  pur- 
poses, but  it  is  against  all  historical  principles.  If 
the  phonetic  tendency  of  Gothic  was  to  change 
t  into  th,  the  same  language  could  hardly  have 
changed  th  (dh)  into  d,  and  d  into  t. 

Nor  have  we  really  any  right  to  look  upon  the 
t  in  Sanskrit  trayas,  upon  dh  in  Sanskrit  *dhvar 
(dvar),  upon  d  in  Sanskrit  dvau  as  more  ancient  or 
more  legitimate  than  the  th  in  Gothic  threis,  d  in 
Gothic  daur,  or  t  in  Gothic  tvai.  We  are  driven, 
whether  we  like  it  or  not,  to  look  upon  these  con- 
sonantal varieties  as  dialectic  varieties  of  pronun- 
ciation, prevailing  during  the  pre-historic  period  of 
Aryan  speech,  and  preserved  with  wonderful  perti- 
nacity by  one  or  the  other  of  the  different  members 
of  the  Aryan  family  of  speech  through  thousands  of 
years  to  the  present  day. 

And  this  view  of  the  changes  of  consonants  applies 
with  equal  force  to  the  changes  of  vowels  which  we 
have  just  been  considering.  When  we  say  that  Sk. 
i  and  u  were  strengthened  to  8i  (e)  and  au  (o),  and 
lengthened  to  ai  and  au,  or  that  Ig.  ei  or  eu  were  weak- 


334  THE    BECOMING    OF    LETTERS.  [chap. 

ened  to  i  and  u,  we  take  for  granted  things  which 
have  never  been  proved.  Can  we  imagine  that  there 
ever  was  a  period  in  the  history  of  Sanskrit  when 
there  were  only  words  with  simple  vowels,  such  as 
vid,  but  not  yet  veda,  budh,  but  not  yet  bodha? 
Or,  to  take  the  other  view,  was  there  ever  a  stage 
in  the  growth  of  Greek  when  there  were  forms  like 
oTSa,  but  not  yet  lo-^ev,  ireWo),  but  not  yet  eiriOov  ? 

Neither  one  nor  the  other  question  can  honestly 
be  answered  in  the  affirmative  except  by  those  who 
believe  that  language  grew  up  according  to  the  rules 
of  grammar,  nay,  according  to  our  own  views  of 
Sanskrit  and  Greek  grammar.  I  believe  in  no 
chronological  succession  between  i  and  e  in  Sanskrit 
as  little  as  between  i  and  ei  in  Greek.  The  Neben- 
einander  in  the  growth  of  language  is  far  more 
important  in  my  eyes,  and  far  more  true  than  the 
Nacheinander.  We  shall  then  gain  a  much  more 
intelligible  view  of  the  development  of  speech  than 
we  had  before.  We  may  still  look  upon  certain 
formations  as  more  regular,  i.  e.  as  supported  by  a 
larger  majority  of  cases  than  others  ;  we  may  say 
in  that  sense  that  in  its  consonantal  skeleton  pitar  is 
more  primitive  than  Gothic  fadar  (fadar),  nay,  some 
would  wish  to  represent  Greek  otSa  as  more  original 
than  the  U  in  Icr^ev  (tSfjiev).  But  we  need  not 
therefore  look  upon  Sanskrit  pitar  as  chronologically 
antecedent  to  fadar,  or  on  tS  in  tS/xev  as  the  ante- 
cedent cause  of  oTSa.  Even  phonetic  considerations 
forbid  such  a  view.  If  every  word  is  considered  as 
the  product  of  another,  we  are  driven  at  last  to  such 
violent  proceedings  as,  for  instance,  the  derivation 
of  sid  in  sidati  from  sisasd,  to  which  I  alluded  before. 
Sad  is  no  doubt  the  most  general  abstract  expres- 


v]  THE    BECOMING    OF    LETTERS.  335 

sion  for  sitting  in  Sanskrit,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  sad  went  through  a  regular  grammatical  process 
like  that  by  which  we  are  told  that  sad  was  first 
reduplicated  and  became  sisad,  that  then  the  second 
a  was  dropped,  giving  us  sisd,  that  in  sisd  the 
second  s  became  z,  that  the  z  in  sizd  was  dropped 
and  its  loss  compensated  by  lengthening  the  vowel, 
and  leaving  at  last  sid  in  sidati.  This  is  not  the 
way  in  which  language  really  grows  and  spreads. 
Several  of  these  hypothetical  changes  are  against 
the  very  genius  of  Sanskrit,  and  no  parallels  taken 
from  other  languages  would  be  of  any  avail.  Lan- 
guages change  on  a  much  larger  scale,  and  chiefly 
by  means  of  broad  analogies.  Why  not  appeal 
therefore  to  analogous  cases  in  Sanskrit  ?  We  have 
in  Sanskrit  itself  tir  by  the  side  of  tar,  and  deriva- 
tives such  as  tiras  and  tira.  We  have  sidh  by  the 
side  of  sadh,  and  derivatives  such  as  both  sadhu 
and  sidhyati.  Why  not  accept  therefore  sid  as 
a  parallel  form  of  sad  ? 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  look  everywhere  for 
a  causal  nexus,  and  to  accept  every  cause  as  ante- 
cedent to  its  effect,  that  it  was  natural,  no  doubt, 
to  look  upon  the  changes  and  varieties  of  language 
also  from  the  same  point  of  view.  Nor  do  I  see 
much  harm  if  for  practical  purposes  we  speak  of 
Sanskrit  sisd  being  changed  to  sid  ;  or,  as  we  saw 
before,  of  Sanskrit  t  being  changed  into  Gothic  th, 
and  of  Gothic  d  being  really  preceded  by  Sanskrit 
dh.  Only  when  more  seriously  considering  the 
nature  of  language  and  the  possibilities  of  its  his- 
torical changes,  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  what 
seems  antecedent  grammatically  or  phonetically 
need  not  have  been  so  chronologically,  but  that  out 


336  THE    BECOMING    OF    LETTERS.  [chap. 

of  the  unbounded  wealth  of  dialectic  possibilities, 
a  few  only  survived  in  what  remains  to  us  of  ancient 
language  and  literature,  and  that  in  language  as 
in  a  primitive  state  of  society  the  nephew  often 
may  take  the  place  of  the  son,  and  uncles  claim  the 
name  of  parents. 

Aryan  Vowels  and  their  Legitimate  Changes. 

After  this  digression  we  shall  be  all  the  more 
able  to  appreciate  the  valuable  results  which  have 
been  obtained  by  the  phonetic  researches  of  the  last 
generation.  It  has  been  clearly  proved  that  the 
original  wealth  of  Aryan  vowels  was  not  confined 
to  &,  I,  u,  e  (ai),  6  (au),  ai,  and  au,  but  that  all  (not 
even  excluding  Sanskrit)  possessed  originally  the 
vowels  I,  e,  o,  1,  ti,  ei  (Sk.  e),  eu  (Sk.  6),  oi  (Sk.  ai), 
ou  (Sk.  au),  nay,  that  they  likewise  possessed  r,  1, 
m,  n,  pronounced  like  vowels,  and  forming  a  syllable, 
either  by  themselves  or  as  preceded  and  followed  by 
consonants.  Sanskrit  had  even  invented  graphic 
signs  for  two  of  these  sonant  semivowels,  viz.  ^j,  ^;, 
rl,  ri,  and  ^j,  li,  but  in  their  effects  very  similar  sounds 
exist  to  the  present  day  in  modern  languages  also, 
in  the  peculiar  hurried  pronunciation  of  such  words 
as  father,  kindle,  bottom,  bounden,  &c.  It  is  often 
difficult  to  say  who  was  the  first  to  make  some  of 
these  phonetic  discoveries.  In  Sanskrit  the  exist- 
ence of  the  vowels  ri  and  li  required  no  discovery, 
for  they  were  there  as  ^j  and  "%.  I  remember  how- 
ever, if  I  am  not  mistaken,  that  it  was  my  friend 
Lepsius  who  many  years  ago  was  the  first  to  point 
out  that  nasalisation  was  a  simple  grammatical  ex- 
pedient, a  kind  of  guna,  in  fact,  and  who  j^laced 
forms  such  as  man  and  mata,  gam  and  gat  a,  dasati 


v]  ARYAN    VOWELS.  337 

and  dadamsa  on  a  level  with  sar  and  sWta,  bodh 
and  buddha,  dis  and  didesa,  &C.1  This  influence 
of  nasalisation  extended  very  far.  All  roots  marked 
in  the  DhatupaiAa  with  i  are  liable  to  be  nasalised 
(Paw.  VII,  1,  58),  others  are  nasalised  in  certain  tenses 
only,  such  as  muk,  num&ati,  vid,  vmc^ati,  sik,  siil&ati, 
&c.  (Paw.  VII,  1,  59).  The  principle  is  the  same 
throughout,  though  the  application  varies  (Paw.  VII, 
1,  60-69).  In  a  similar  way  we  see  that  yug  was 
raised  by  nasalisation  to  y\ing,  and  that  the  nasal 
became  syllabic  in  yuna^.  In  cases  like  that  of  yug 
the  nasalisation  of  yug,  by  way  of  strengthening  the 
root,  seems  certainly  a  more  natural  proceeding  than 
the  denasalisation  of  a  supposed  original  yuiig  or 
yuna^. 

The  Accent. 

The  general  result  at  which  we  arrive  from  an 
examination  of  the  grammatical  observations  of 
Pacini,  is  that  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  influence 
of  the  accent  of  terminations  and  other  suffixes  on 
verbal  as  well  as  nominal  bases.  This  refers  par- 
ticularly to  the  earliest  stage  of  Aryan  speech,  of 
which  even  in  the  Veda  we  possess  fragments  only. 
We  can  see  what  the  accent  was  meant  to  be,  but 
we  also  perceive  how  the  original  working  of  the 
accent  has  been  interfered  with  by  false  analogy 
and  by  a  general  forgetfulness  of  its  natural  purpose. 
Why  certain  terminations  and  suffixes  should  have 
retained  the  acute  accent,  while  others  have  not, 
did  not  enter  into  the  sphere  of  Pacini's  inquiries. 
He  was  satisfied  with  the  fact  that  certain  termina- 

1  Science  of  Thought,  p.  620. 
VOL.  I.  Z 


338  THE    ACCENT.  [chap. 

tions  and  suffixes  did  weaken  the  base,  because  they 
had  originally  the  acute  accent,  while  unaccented 
terminations  either  left  the  base  unaffected,  or  re- 
quired its  being  strengthened.  For  practical  pur- 
poses, the  more  modern  view  comes  to  the  same 
result  in  the  end,  even  though  the  root  be  looked 
upon  as  weakened  by  accented  terminations  and 
suffixes,  and  as  remaining  unaffected  by  unaccented 
terminations  and  suffixes. 

Even  if  we  were  to  look  on  ved  as  unaffected, 
and  on  vid  as  weakened,  on  yu%  or  yuna^  as  un- 
affected, on  jug  as  weakened,  we  should  have  to 
admit  that  both  the  High-stage  (Guna)  and  the  Low- 
stage  are  liable  to  great  variety  in  different  lan- 
guages, so  that  we   see  in   Sanskrit  declensions  a 
third  base,  the  Bha-base  by  the  side  of  the  Pada- 
base.    In  some  of  these  languages  it  would  be  useful 
to  distinguish  five  stages,  the  Level-stage  with  the 
High-  and  Long-stages  on  one  side,  and  the  Low-  and 
Loss-stages   on   the    other.     In   German  these    five 
stages  might  be  called  Grundstufe,  Hochstufe,  Dehn- 
stufe,    Tiefstufe,    and    Schwundstufe.      In   counting 
from  below,  the   Schwundstufe   would   be   one,  the 
Tiefstufe  two,  the  Grundstufe  three,  the  Hochstufe 
four,  and  the  Dehnstufe  five,  and  in  some  cases  even 
this  number  might  have  to  be  increased.    We  must 
not  expect,  however,  that  every  base,  whether  verbal 
or  nominal,  is  represented  in  every  one  of  these  stages. 
Some,  in  fact  most  bases,  are  altogether  unchange- 
able ;  others  have  two,  three,  four,  very  few  have  all 
five  stages.     There  are  phonetic  difficulties  which, 
as  we  saw,  would  prevent  the  Loss-stage  in  bases 
like  budh  or  vid,  or  would  necessarily  restrict  the 
High-  and  Long-stages  to  the  same  form,  as  in  pat, 


v]  THE    ACCENT.  339 

which  in  Sanskrit  cannot  go  beyond  pat.     We  see 
all  the  five  stages  in  cases  like  : — 

3.  Level-base  (Grundstufe) :  r.are  >  in  Trarepa,  Sk.  pitaram. 

4.  High-base  (Hochstufe)  :  irart'jp,  Sk.  pita. 

5.  Long-base  (Dehnstufe)  :  narap. 

2.   Low-base  (Tiefstufe) :  -n-aTpdo-i,  Sk.  pitnshu. 
1.   Loss-base  (Schwundstufe) :  u-arpos,  Sk.  pitiir. 


Ablaut. 

The  most  important  application  of  the  principle 
of  equilibrium  between  base  and  suffix  has  been  its 
application  to  what  was  known  before  as  Ablaut. 

We  saw  that  Grimm  looked  upon  Ablaut  as  some- 
thing dynamic,  as  a  vowel  change  intended  from  the 
very  beginning  to  express  a  change  of  meaning,  and 
analagous  to  such  changes  as  Katala,  Kutila,  &c.  in 
Semitic  dialects.  Bopp  was  the  first  to  claim  for 
the  Ablaut  as  well  as  for  the  Umlaut  a  mechanical 
explanation.  In  this  he  succeeded  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, though  the  process  itself  remained  as  mysterious 
as  ever.  Some  of  this  mystery  was  removed  by 
Benfey,  with  the  help  of  the  ancient  Sanskrit  gram- 
marians, though  even  then  the  mystery  was  not  yet 
completely  cleared  up.  The  facts  have  since  been 
more  fully  collected  and  far  more  carefully  classified, 
but  the  real  and  primal  cause  remains  as  obscure  as 
ever.  After  the  excellent  work  done  by  Holtzmann, 
Benfey,  De  Saussure,  Osthoff,  Brugmann,  and  others, 
it  was  left  to  Professor  Hiibschmann x  to  reduce 
their  accumulated  observations  to  something  like 
order,  and  thus  to  make  the  whole  process  of  the 
Ablaut  and  all  that  is  connected  with  it  orderly  and 

1  Das  Indo-Germanische  Vokal system,  1885. 
Z  2 


34-0  ABLAUT.  [CHAP. 

clear.  We  know  now  that  with  all  the  freedom 
which  the  vowels  of  Aryan  words  enjoy,  there  are 
fixed  limits  which  they  cannot  overstep  in  their 
modifications.  We  know,  for  instance,  that  roots 
such  as  vid  (or  veid),  budh  (or  beudh)  can  never 
lose  their  vowels  i  and  u,  though  other  roots  having 
the  a-vowel  may  lose  it,  as  in  paptur  for  papatur. 
We  know  that  the  modifications  of  the  i-vowel  can 
never  be  those  of  the  u- vowel  or  a-vowel,  that  is  to 
say,  that  forms  like  l-nvdo^-qv  can  have  no  relation- 
ship with  hndov,  or  7reucro/xat  with  7retcro/xat,  or 
lrvydy\v  from  reoyu>  with  hiydr\v  from  tiktoj.  The 
only  reservation  to  be  made  is  that  there  are  cases 
in  which  the  radical  vowel  itself  varies,  or,  as  we 
might  also  say,  where  there  are  from  the  beginning 
parallel  roots  differing  in  their  vowel  only.  Thus 
there  is  sidh  by  the  side  of  sadh  ;  sidh  giving  si- 
dhyati,  seddha,  asidhat,  sedhayati  (Pstoi.  VI,  1,49), 
sadh  giving  sadhnoti,  sadhyati,  saddha,  sadhayati, 
asatsit.  There  is  khid  by  the  side  of  khad,  as 
we  see  in  (Paw.  VI,  1,  52)  Aikheda  and  Aikhada. 
Other  cases  of  a  similar  character  have  been  collected 
by  Pacini  (VI,  1,  47  seq.)1,  such  as  sphorayati  by 
the  side  of  spharayati. 

We  have  also  to  be  prepared  for  such  parallel 
forms  as  tar,  tir,  tur  ;  gar,  gir,  gur,  whether  we  treat 
them  as  independent  roots,  or  as  modifications  of 
the  same  root.  We  know,  as  Hlibschmann  has 
shown  (p.  65),  that  the  so-called  heavy  roots,  ending 
in  a,  never  show  short  a  except  before  y  (and  v  ?), 
that  is  to  say,  we  may  have  the  Ablaut-series  a-a-i, 

1  Science  of  Thought,  p.  254,  where  some  roots  should  be 
omitted. 


v]  ABLAUT.  34I 

and  a,  before  y,  while  in  light  roots  the  vowel  series 
is  always  a-a-a  and  never  i.  A  knowledge  of 
these  limits  has  proved  a  useful  check  on  many 
etymologies  which  formerly  seemed  unassailable, 
while  a  knowledge  of  what  is  legitimately  possible 
in  vowel  changes  has  placed  other  derivations  on 
a  much  safer  basis.  The  only  point  on  which  I  differ 
from  Prof.  Hiibschmann  is  the  order  of  the  stages 
through  which,  according  to  him,  vowels  have  to 
pass  as  they  are  either  weakened  or  strengthened. 
I  think  we  should  always  start  from  the  Level-stage 
(Grundstufe),  which  is  either  reduced  on  one  side 
to  the  Low-stage  (Tiefstufe),  and  the  Loss-stage 
(Schwundstufe),  or  raised  on  the  other  to  the  High- 
stage  (Hochstufe),  and  the  Long-stage  (Dehnstufe). 
In  many  cases  therefore  I  should  call  what  others 
call  Low-stage,  Level-stage,  as,  for  instance,  Sk. 
budh,  vid,  while  I  see  in  Sk.  bodh  and  ved  a  High- 
stage,  and  in  Sk.  baudh  and  vaid  a  Long-stage. 
This,  however,  does  not  affect  the  facts,  but  only 
the  principle.  A  large  number  of  facts  in  illustration 
of  these  Ablaut  changes  may  be  seen  in  Hubschmann's 
and  Brugmann's  works.  A  few  instances  must  suffice 
for  our  present  purpose.  The  six  series  of  vowel 
change  according  to  Brugmann  (i,  p.  248)  are  : — 

(i)  e  series :  0,  e,  o,  e,  6. 

(ii)  e  series  :  0,  33 ',  e,  6. 

(iii)  a  series :  0,  ae,  a,  6. 

(iv)  6  series :  0,  33,  6. 

(v)  a  series :  0,  a(o),  a,  6. 

(vi)  o  series  :  0,  o,  6. 

These  are  the  postulated  Proto- Aryan  representa- 
tives,   which    are   varied   according    to    the   vowel 

1  This  as  or  a  appears  generally  as  1. 


342  ABLAUT.  [CHAP. 

system  peculiar  to  each  of  the  Aryan  languages. 
Sanskrit,  for  instance,  does  not  distinguish  in  writing 
between  e,  o,  a,  and  it  represents  long  e,  a  and  6 
by  a.  It  has,  on  the  other  hand,  the  advantage  of 
a  separate  sign  for  the  sonant  ri  and  li.  In  Latin 
the  vowels  are  written  differently  in  different  periods 
of  the  language.  In  Gothic  e  and  o  are  missing, 
and  represented  at  once  by  I  and  u,  though  differing 
probably  in  pronunciation. 


Instances. 


(i)  Instances   of  the  e   series  : — Thus    in   the   e 
series,  which  is  most  largely  represented,  we  have  in 
Sanskrit  the  level  form  ped  (written  pad)  weakened 
to  pd  and  bd  in  upabdi  (noise),  raised  to  pad  in  the 
high  form  pad,  nom.  sing,  pad,  foot,  gen.  padas.     In 
Greek  we  have  the  level  form  in  7re£d?,  the  high 
form  in  iroha,  the  long  form  in  ttovs  and  7rws.     In 
Latin  we  have  the  corresponding  stages  in  pedis, 
tripodare,  and  pes.     In  the  same  series  we  find  the 
level   form    of  the  termination   tri  in  pitW,  as  in 
pitn'shu,  the  high  form  in  pitarau,  the  long  form 
pita(r).     In  Greek  we  have  the  level  form  narepa, 
lowered  in  iraTpa<ri  and  Trarpos,  raised  in  iraTrip  and 
in  compos,  irarcop.     In  Latin  we  have  only  patris  and 
pater  ;  in  Gothic  we  should  have  fadrs,  fadrum,  and 
fader  (O.N).     I  take  e'x^,  Sk.  sah,  as  the  level  stage, 
weakened  in  €-a-)(ov,  strengthened  in  0^09.    Likewise 
pat,  weakened  in  pap-tur,  strengthened  in  patayati ; 
kar,    weakened   in  krttas  and  Aakre,  strengthened 
in   akaram  and  £akara.     Budh  is  strengthened  in 
bodhati  and  bauddha,  and   never  weakened.     Vid 
is    strengthened    in    veda    and    vaidya,   and    never 


v]  INSTANCES.  343 

weakened.  In  Gothic,  the  level  form  which  we  find 
in  stig-um,  is  raised  to  steig-a,  lengthened  in  staig ; 
as  bud-um  is  raised  to  biuda  and  bau]?,  but  never 
weakened.  The  root  bend  appears  on  its  level-stage 
in  binda  (*bandha),  on  its  high-stage  in  band  (Sk. 
babandha),  on  its  low-stage  in  bundum  (for  budum). 
In  Greek  we  have  fxivoi,  [xovrj  and  jxl^-poj,  reuco,  tovos, 
and  toltos  ;  e\nrov,  XetVw  and  XeXoina  ;  e(j)vyov  and 
(fievyco.     In  Latin  perfldus,  fido  and  foedus,  &c. 

(ii)  Instances  of  the  e  series : — Dadhami,  tlOt)^, 
Gothic  gadeths,  weakened  in  dadhmas,  Tid{e)^ev,  in 
hitas,  06to<;,  strengthened  in  flood's,  in  Gothic  doms. 

(iii)  Instances  of  the  a  series  : — Dor.  tcrrajott,  ecrrav, 
tish^hami,  astham,  weakened  in  sthita,  o-rard?,  status, 
tasthur. 

(iv)  Instances  of  the  6  series  : — Dadami,  dxlam, 
StSw/xt,  eSojv,  donum,  weakened  in  adita,  Soros,  datus, 
in  dadmas,  818(0)^,  dattas ;  strengthening  im- 
possible. 

(v)  Instances  of  the  a  series : — Agkmi,  ayw. 
ago,  weakened  in  a^as,  ay 6s,  in  #man,  oyfxos  (?), 
strengthened  in  %is,  o-rpaT-qyos,  ambages.  Yd#ami, 
a^o/xaL,  weakened  in  ish^a,  i(/ur,  strengthened  in 
iyaz/a,  ayakshit. 

(vi)  Instances  of  the  o  series  : — Root  od,  in  o£ei, 
odor,  oleo,  strengthened  in  oSwSe.  Stem  go  (gau), 
/3oe?,  bovis,  strengthened  in  gaus,  fiovs,  bos,  weakened 
in  sugus. 

Whoever  recollects  Bopp's  review  of  Grimm's 
German  Grammar,  will  be  surprised  at  the  progress 
that  has  been  made  in  a  systematic  treatment  of 
these  vowel  changes  in  the  principal  Aryan  lan- 
guages. But  he  will  nevertheless  admire  Bopp's 
sagacity,  even  when  we  know  now  that  he  was  on 


344  INSTANCES.  [CHAP. 

a  wrong  road,  and  he  will  probably  be  startled  at 
the  extraordinary  mastery  of  facts  displayed  by  the 
ancient  Sanskrit  grammarians  who  in  the  end  be- 
came the  best  guides  of  such  scholars  as  Holtzmann, 
Benfey  and  others  in  helping  them  to  unravel  the 
confused  web  of  the  ancient  accents,  and  using  that 
thread  in  their  bold  exploration  of  the  labyrinth  of 
the  Aryan  vowel  changes.  It  is  easy  now  to  sneer 
at  Bopp's  work,  and  to  say  '  that  a  broad  and  heavy 
mantle  of  charity  needs  to  be  drawn  over  it.'  Those 
who  like  myself  have  lived  through  all  the  stages 
of  these  controversies,  who  have  in  turn  been  fol- 
lowers of  Grimm,  of  Bopp,  of  Holtzmann,  Benfey, 
De  Saussure,  Brugmann,  and  Hlibschmann,  know 
how  difficult  it  often  was  to  advance  from  one  point 
of  view  to  another,  nay,  how  long  they  had  to  labour 
before  they  mastered  the  simplest  elements  of  the 
Sanskrit  accent,  as  explained  in  Boehtlingk's  Versuch 
in  1843,  and  in  my  Sanskrit  Grammar  (1886),  and 
how  difficult  it  often  was  to  shake  off  as  no  longer 
tenable  what  for  many  years  they  had  held  as  abso- 
lute truth.  It  is  sometimes  quite  as  difficult  to  give 
up  what  for  many  years  one  has  held  to  be  true  as 
to  learn  a  new  truth  or  a  new  terminology.  It  is 
all  the  more  pleasant  to  read  a  work  like  Bechtel's 
excellent  Indogermanische  Lautlehre,  1892,  where 
a  sketch  of  the  labours  of  successive  scholars  is 
given,  so  far  as  the  treatment  of  vowels  and  con- 
sonants is  concerned,  and  where,  though  we  see  how 
much  of  the  work  of  Grimm,  Bopp,  Schleicher  and 
others  has  now  become  antiquated,  never  a  word  is 
uttered  of  disparagement ;  on  the  contrary,  credit  is 
given  for  all  honest  work,  whether  its  results  are  at 
present  accepted  or  rejected. 


v]  ASSIMILATION,   J.   SCHMIDT.  345 


Assimilation,  J.  Schmidt. 


Nor  is  there  likely  to  be  peace  or  rather  rest,  not 
to   say   stagnation,   for    some    time    to    come.     The 
march  of  the  army   of  comparative  philologists  is 
going  on  as  brisk  as  ever,  and  some  of  the  latest 
discoveries  of  Hiibschmann  and  Brugmann  have  by 
this  time  been  left  far  behind  by  new  discoveries. 
It  was  seen  that  the  rules   of  the  Ablaut,  of  the 
weakening  and   strengthening    of  vowels,   however 
minutely   worked   out   by  our   best    scholars,   were 
broken  when  we  least  expected  it  (Noreen,  Abriss, 
$  11).      As   no  exception   could  well  be  tolerated, 
reasons  had  to  be  discovered  for  these  exceptions, 
and  one  of  these  reasons,  viz.  assimilation  of  vowels, 
has  of  late  been  very  fully   treated   by  Professor 
J.  Schmidt,  in  Kuhn's  Zeitschrift,  xxxii,  p.  321  seq. 
We  must  remember,  first  of  all,  that  the  representa- 
tion of  the  three  vowels  comprehended  under  the 
Sk.  a,  namely  the  e,  o,  a  in  Greek,  and  their  corre- 
sponding sounds  in  the  other  Aryan  languages,  has 
never  been  reduced  as  yet  to  anything  like  law  and 
order.     Why  we  say  (fidpofxev  but   ^epere,  why  we 
say  e/3So^o5  and  septimus  for  Sk.  saptama,  we  can- 
not  tell.     In   Sanskrit   we   have   the  practical  rule 
that  before  m  and  v  the  final  a  of  the  verbal  stem 
is  lengthened.     But  why  we  have  to  say  bharami, 
bharamas  and  bharavas,  but   bharasi  and   bharati, 
even  the  old  Sanskrit  grammarians  cannot  tell  us. 
It  is  easy  to  say  that  it  is  due  to  the  influence  of 
the  consonants  m  and  v,  but  what  is  the  nature 
of  that  influence  ?     One  thing  only  is  clear,  what- 
ever the  cause  may  have  been,  its  effects  had  begun 
to   appear  before  Greek   and    Sanskrit  were    com- 


346  ASSIMILATION,  J.   SCHMIDT.  [chap. 

pletely  separated,  for  the  Greek  o  is  here  the 
regular  representative  of  the  Sk.  a,  particularly 
in  words  where  a  represents  the  VWddhi  stage. 

Sometimes  it  would  seem  that  e  and  o  were  used 
simply  for  the  sake  of  differentiating  closely  allied 
roots.  Thus  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  root  of 
o£w,  68,  was  originally,  as  pointed  out  by  Benfey, 
the  same  as  that  of  ia$io)  (Or.  und  Occid.,  vol.  i, 
p.  626),  i.e.  e'S.  Taste  and  smell  are  very  nearly 
allied.  A  thing  that  eats  well,  tastes  well,  smacks 
well  (schmeckt  gut).  For  the  sake  of  differentiating 
the  two  meanings,  the  vowel  of  the  root  was  in  very 
distant  times  differentiated,  giving  us  for  eating 
ddmi  in  Sanskrit,  ISojugu,  c'ScuSt;  in  Greek,  itan,  at, 
etum  in  Gothic  ;  for  smelling,  in  Greek,  o£w,  oSajSa, 
in  Latin,  odefacio  and  olefacio,  odor,  &c.  Instead  of 
c'ScuStJ  we  should,  according  to  Schmidt's  rule,  expect 
oScoStj,  but  in  order  to  keep  the  derivatives  of  the 
two  varieties  of  the  root  apart,  ihoohtj  may  have  been 
allowed  to  keep  its  e.  But  this  is  not  all.  There 
are  many  words,  particularly  in  Greek,  where  a,  e,  o 
interchange,  sometimes  in  classical  Greek,  sometimes 
in  the  Greek  dialects.  Here,  too,  certain  rules  pre- 
vail, or,  to  speak  more  cautiously,  here  too  some 
observations  have  been  made  which  to  a  certain 
extent  account  for  these  changes. 

Thus,  as  Professor  Schmidt  has  lately  shown l, 
(i)  e  should  be  assimilated  to  a  following  o,  if  un- 
accented, and  if  followed  by  X,  p,  ju,  F,  XX,  8,  and  k. 
Hence  we  find  6fioX6<;  by  the  side  of  6/3eXo's  as  in 
6/3eXio-Kos,  cudXos  (originally  0,10X05)  by  the  side  of 
dteXo?  in  aieXovpos,  and  aiXovpos.      We  find  e/3So/xo9 

1  Kuhn's  Zeitschrift,  xxxii,  p.  321. 


v]  ASSIMILATION,   J.   SCHMIDT.  347 

for  ejSSe/AOS  as  in  e^e^rfKovra,  ifiSefxcuov,  &c.  There 
is  7rrd\e/ao?  and  rpt7TToXojao5,  TTToXepaios  and  tttoXo- 
jucuog.  'AtreXXojv  should  therefore  be  looked  upon  as 
more  original  than  'AttoXXcov,  '^pyopevos  than  Op^o- 
fxevog,  AeX<f>oi  than  Ao\<j>oC,  just  as  <£peVe9  is  more 
original  than  <f)poves  in  Trpotfipoves,  and  the  Aeolic 
eSoi/Te?,  teeth,  more  original  than  oSovres,  the 
eaters. 

(ii)  Schmidt's  second  observation  refers  to  words 
in  which  e  becomes  o  before  originally  accented  v, 
such  as  KepKvpa  changed  to  KopKvpa. 

(iii)  E,  if  unaccented,  is  assimilated  by  following 
a ;  e.g.  'E/caS^'/xeia  becomes  'A/caSi^eia,  SeXapLVLOs 
SaAa/xi^aos,  Kecra^Spa  Kacra^opa. 

(iv)  A  is  assimilated  to  e,  if  e  is  unaccented  ; 
e.  g.  apery  becomes  iperij,  drep  and  arap  become 
irepos,  dyxeAvo?  becomes  iyx^Xvos. 

(v)  Unaccented  a  is  assimilated  to  following  o  ; 
e.  g.  afxepyoj  and  ojxopyvvjxL ;  crab's  and  crowds  ;  a/xa 
and  6//.09. 

(vi)  A  (before  or  after  />,  a)  is  assimilated  to  o, 
particularly  if  followed  directly  or  indirectly  by  v 
and  Fo,  provided  the  a  was  originally  a  heightened  e  ; 
for  instance,  6p06s  from  *Fap9F6s,  6 py via,  opvvpi, 
crTopvvfjLi,  oWvfiL.  In  all  these  cases  we  expect  dp 
and  dX,  for  Sk.  ri,  just  as  for  Vn'tra,  we  expected 
'ApOpos,  but  find  "OpOpos.  That  the  restriction  of 
being  followed  directly  or  indirectly  by  v  or  Fo,  is 
not  always  observed,  is  shown  by  the  retention  of 
the  o  of  opvvpi  in  opaeo,  oparj,  by  'OpOla  (not  urdhva) 
and  by  "OpOpos  instead  of  "Apdpos  =  Sk.  VWtra. 

(vii)  Initial  unaccented  o  is  assimilated  to  a ; 
e.  g.  oorrafcds,  crab,  and  do-ra/cd?  ;  dcrrpdyaAos  became 
do-TpdyaXos  ;  oSayfxos  and  dSay/xds  (cf.  68d£). 


348  ASSIMILATION,   J.   SCHMIDT.  [chap. 

In  conclusion  Schmidt  gives  some  cases  where 
a  vowel  seems  to  have  been  influenced  by  a  preced- 
ing vowel,  but  these  cases  are,  as  he  admits  himself, 
very  doubtful.  Nor  can  we  look  on  any  one  even 
of  Schmidt's  surer  observations  as  more  than  pho- 
netic tendencies  which  require  to  be  justified  in 
every  single  case.  The  minute  conditions  to  which 
every  one  of  them  is  liable,  show  by  themselves  how 
many  undercurrents  there  are  which  may  either 
favour  or  counteract  such  tendencies.  Still  by  an 
accumulation  of  instances  and  counter-instances 
Schmidt  and  Noreen  have  widened  our  view,  and 
shown  how  many  circumstances  have  to  be  taken 
into  account  before  we  can  declare  positively  that 
the  presence  of  a  vowel  such  as  a,  e,  o,  either 
confirms  or  forbids  the  identification  of  words  in 
Sanskrit,  Greek,  and  Latin. 

Consonants. 

It  has  often  been  asked  whether,  for  etymological 
purposes,  vowels  are  more  important  or  consonants. 
Such  a  question  is  really  foolish.  At  first  sight  the 
consonantal  skeleton  of  a  word  may  seem  more 
important,  and,  as  prima  facie  evidence,  consonants 
are  no  doubt  more  helpful  than  vowels.  When  we 
see  Latin  pater  and  Sk.  pitar,  we  are  at  once  im- 
pressed by  their  consonantal  similarity,  and  we  feel 
inclined  to  waive  any  dissimilarity  of  vowels. 
Still,  unless  other  cases  could  be  produced  in  which 
a  Latin  a  is  represented  by  Sk.  i,  there  are  scholars 
who  would  insist  that  the  two  words  pater  and 
pitar,  in  spite  of  the  identity  of  their  meaning  and 
in  spite  of  the  identity  of  their  consonantal  outline, 


v]  CONSONANTS.  349 

could  not  possibly  be  traced  back  to  the  same  source. 
This  seems  to  be  going  too  far.  Anyhow,  it  should 
be  considered  whether  it  was  likely  that  the  idea  of 
father  should  have  been  expressed  by  words  derived 
by  the  same  suffix  from  two  distinct  roots,  varying 
from  each  other  in  the  colour  of  one  of  their  vowels 
only.  In  the  days  preceding  the  discovery  of 
Verner's  Law,  it  would  have  been  much  more 
justifiable,  as  I  pointed  out  before,  to  doubt  the 
etymological  relationship  of  Gothic  fadar  and  Latin 
pater,  on  account  of  the  absence  of  the  aspiration  of 
the  dental,  as  required  by  Grimm's  Law  ;  but  I  do 
not  recollect  any  such  protest  being  raised  against 
it,  common  sense  in  this  case,  as  in  others,  fortu- 
nately proving  stronger  than  respect  for  phonetic 
laws.  In  the  course  of  a  long  life  I  have  myself 
been  blamed  and  ridiculed  sometimes  for  too  blind 
an  observance  of  phonetic  laws.  I  well  remember 
how  men  of  considerable  literary  eminence  repre- 
sented it  as  the  height  of  scholastic  pedantry  to 
deny  any  relationship  between  such  words  as  KaKelv 
and  to  call,  cura  and  care,  Dame  in  Dame  Dieu 
and  Damn  !  Nor  have  I  on  the  other  side  escaped 
severe  blame  for  having  ventured,  in  defiance  of 
all  phonetic  restrictions,  to  connect  Sk.  deva  and 
Oeos,  Sk.  Varmia  and  Ovpavos,  Sk.  Vn'tra  and 
*Op9po<;,  Sk.  Ahana  and  'Adrjvr).  All  here  depends 
on  argument.  If  better  etymologies  can  be  sug- 
gested for  these  words  than  those  I  have  brought 
forward,  there  would  at  once  be  an  end  of  all 
controversy,  and  no  one  would  be  better  pleased 
than  myself.  But  though  I  am  well  aware  of  the 
irregularities  involved  in  these  identifications  of 
Sanskrit  and  Greek  words,  I  have  never  despaired 


35°  CONSONANTS.  [chap. 

of  being  able  to  justify  them  both  in  their  vowels 
and  in  their  consonants. 

The  discoveries  in  the  realm  of  consonants  have 
certainly  been  quite  as  important  as  those  in  the 
realm  of  vowels.  In  the  same  way,  for  instance,  as 
it  was  found  that  the  Sanskrit  alphabet  had  but 
one  representative  for  the  three  shades  of  the  simple 
vowel,  a,  e,  o,  it  was  found  that  several  of  its 
consonants  also  possessed  more  than  one  power, 
represented  more  than  one  definite  sound.  Here 
also  the  facts  themselves  were  well  known  to  the 
ancient  grammarians  of  India.  They  taught,  for 
instance,  that  some  roots  ending  in  5r  g  and  f  h 
change  their  finals  into  ^  and  ^,  while  others 
change  them   into   Unguals. 

Two  kinds  of  Palatals. 

Thus  spr^  yu<7  forms  the  participle  *pfj:  yukta/i  ; 
<H  duh  forms  ^Ttf:  (i.  e.  dugh  +  tah)  ;  but  *f5T  mrig 
forms  Jre:  mrisht&h ;  f^rf  lib  forms  ir\%:  lidha.h. 
Every  tiro  knew  these  facts,  or  had  to  learn  them 
from  his  Sanskrit  Grammar  (M.  M.,  §§  119,  124,  127, 
129).  The  same  applies  to  roots  in  ^  s.  Though 
we  cannot  test  this  ^  s  in  the  past  participle, 
because  here  both  f^^  dis  would  form  f^:  disht&h 
and  f%"^  vis,  f^j:  vishteA,  yet  in  the  nom.  sing,  f^^ 
dis  appears  as  f^ejj  dik,  but  f%^  vis  as  f$z  vitf. 
Therefore  here  also  the  ^  s  represents  two  distinct 
powers.  But  though  these  facts  were  perfectly  well 
known,  it  was  Ascoli  who  first  drew  the  subtle 
though  important  conclusion  that  when  the  effects 
are  different,  the  causes  also  must  be  different,  or,  in 
other  words,  that  the  letters  ^  s,  *r  g,  and  f  h,  must 
represent  in  Sanskrit  two  powers,  the  one  guttural, 


v]  TWO    KINDS    OF    PALATALS.  35 1 

the  other  non-guttural,  and  that  they  may  therefore 
in  cognate  languages  also  be  expected  to  have 
different  representatives.  It  should  be  remembered, 
however,  that  like  other  phonetic  observations  this 
also  is  not  without  exceptions.  These  exceptions 
were  clearly  indicated  by  Pa/iini,  and  have  to  be 
accepted  and  taken  into  account,  even  though  they 
cannot  be  accounted  for.  There  are  roots  in  Sans- 
krit (Paw.  VIII,  2,  33)  the  final  of  which  is  treated 
both  as  guttural  and  as  lingual.  This  applies  to  such 
roots  as  ^f  druh,  g^  muh,  ^rf  snuh,  f%^  snih.  We 
find,  therefore,  both  y^j  dhruk  and  i*Z  dhru^,  both 
$*t*t:  drugdha/i  and  j^s:  drudhah,  jpej:  mugdha/i  and 
jj<j:  miidh&h.  We  find  likewise  from  ^^  y&g  both 
■^jf^ejj  n'tvik  and  ^%z  deve£ ;  from  »p^  nas  both  «f^ 
nak  and  «rc  na£.  Again,  there  are  roots  in  Sanskrit 
the  final  of  which  is  treated  both  as  guttural  and 
as  dental.  These  are  mentioned  by  Pacini  (VIII, 
2,  34).  They  are  «Tf  nah  and  ^  ah.  Language 
here,  as  elsewhere,  asserts  its  dialectic  freedom 
against  rules  and  analogies.  We  look  in  vain  for 
a  reason,  whether  phonetic  or  otherwise,  and  must 
learn  to  accept  facts  such  as  they  are,  even  though 
we  are  unable  to  account  for  them.  As  these 
so-called  irregularities  are  not  confined  in  their 
effects  to  the  derivatives  of  these  roots  in  Sanskrit, 
it  follows  that  they  must  be  referred  to  the  Proto- 
Aryan  period. 

What  is  important,  however,  is  that  we  shall 
have  to  admit  in  Sanskrit,  as  well  as  in  other  Aryan 
languages,  the  existence  of  a  class  of  consonants 
which,  in  order  to  distinguish  them  from  the  ordi- 
nary palatals,  the  %  ^,  ^T,  ij,  ^,  and  ^,  h,  kh,  g,  gh, 
ft,  and  s,  we  may  provisionally  call  Linguo-palatals, 


352  TWO   KINDS   OF   PALATALS.  [chap. 

namely  the  5T  g,  when  representing  z,  and  the  f  h, 
when  representing  zh,  and  the  ^  s,  when  repre- 
senting z  t.  Thus  we  find  corresponding  to  Sk. 
satam,  Lit.  szhhtas,  with  assibilated  s,  but  Gr.  eKarov, 
Lat.  centum,  Celt,  cet,  with  guttural  tenuis.  Like- 
wise Sk.  g\vn%  where  g  stands  for  z,  which  appears 
as  z  in  Lit.  zirnis,  Slav,  zrino,  while  Lat.  has  the 
guttural  media  in  granum,  and  Goth,  the  corre- 
sponding tenuis  kaurn.  Likewise  the  Sk.  h,  when 
it  represents  an  original  zh,  is  represented  in  Sans- 
krit by  the  h  in  hima,  Avestic  zima,  and  therefore 
by  z  in  Lit.  zema,  Slav,  zima,  but  in  Greek  by 
Xeijuw,  in  Lat.  by  hiems,  in  Celt,  by  gam.  See 
also  Sk.  sroms,  Lit.  szlaunes,  Lett,  slauna,  but  Lat. 
clunis,  0.  N.  hlaun. 

Two  kinds  of  Gutturals. 

In  the  same  way  it  was  discovered  that  what 
were  called  in  Sanskrit  the  gutturals  (ka^Aya) 
represented  really  two  classes  of  letters,  some  of 
them  being  liable  to  labialisation  (and  in  Greek  to 
dentalisation),  while  others  were  not.  The  fact 
that  the  Sanskrit  gutturals  k,  kh,  g,  gh  are  liable 
to  be  represented  in  Greek,  Latin,  Celtic,  and 
German  by  labials  and  dentals,  was  known  from 
the  earliest  days  of  Comparative  Philology,  for  who 
would  have  doubted  that  Sk.  kas  was  Gr.  /cos  and 
ttos,  Lat.  quis,  Cymr.  pwy,  Goth,  hvas,  or  that  Gr.  ri 
corresponded  to  Lat.  quid,  Sk.  Hd  ?  No  one  ever 
doubted  that  Sk.  pan&a  was  Gr.  irivre,  Lat.  quinque, 
Cymr.  pimp,  Goth,  fimf,  or  again  that  Sk.  Aatvar  was 
Lat.  quatuor,  Gr.  reWape?,  Goth,  fidvor.  But  what 
was  even  more  curious  was  that  the  same  languages, 
viz.    Sanskrit,    Zend,    Armenian,     Lituanian,    and 


v]  TWO    KINDS    OF   GUTTURALS.  353 

Slavonic,  which,  as  we  saw,  possessed  the  assibilated 
Linguo-palatals  in  cases  where  the  other  languages, 
viz.  Greek,  Italian,  and  German,  presented  unassibi- 
lated  gutturals,  resisted  also  the  labialisation  or 
dentalisation  of  gutturals  in  cases  where  the  other 
class  of  languages  allowed  it.  Thus  we  find  that 
Sk.  Aa  was  Lat.  que,  Cymric  -p,  Gothic  -h,  and 
Gr.  re.  But  the  conditions  under  which  these 
apparently  violent  modifications  took  place  were  not 
known,  and  the  merit  of  having  gradually  discovered 
some  of  them  belongs  again,  I  think,  to  Ascoli, 
though  in  conjunction  with  other  scholars,  such  as 
Fick,  Schmidt,  and  Brugmann.  It  was  not  known 
before,  that  there  were  two  classes  of  languages, 
one  which  never  labialised  or  dentalised,  and  another 
which  never  assibilated ;  nor  was  it  clearly  per- 
ceived that  even  the  labialising  languages  do  not 
always  labialise  their  gutturals,  and  that  in  this 
case  the  fate  of  the  unlabialised  gutturals  becomes 
much  the  same  as  the  fate  of  the  palatals. 

Much  ingenuity  has  been  spent  on  the  solution 
of  this  phonetic  problem,  and  I  believe  its  solution 
would  have  become  much  easier  if  letters  had  not 
been  treated  here  also,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Laut- 
verschiebung,  as  things  existing  by  themselves  that 
can  be  changed  from  one  language  to  another. 
Even  the  Greek  dialects  cannot  be  treated  in  that 
way.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show,  for  instance, 
that  in  words  like  satam,  a  hundred,  and  the  Greek 
zkcltov,  s  ever  became  k,  or  k  became  s.  We  cannot 
even  realise  such  an  idea,  nay,  it  seems  to  me  to 
involve  a  contradiction  in  itself.  We  have  in  the 
end  always  to  deal  with  human  beings,  some  of 
whom,  so  long  as  we  know,  pronounced  satam,  while 

vol.  1.  A  a 


354  TW0   KINDS    OF   GUTTUKALS.  [chap. 

others  pronounced  katon.  One  speaker  had  as 
much  right  as  another,  nor  could  it  be  decided  by 
a  majority  of  speakers  whether  s  was  more  original 
than  k,  or  k  than  s.  To  say  that  Sk.  s  becomes 
Greek  k,  or  vice  versa,  seems  to  me  utterly  un- 
meaning, unless  we  accept  it  as  a  mere  mode  of 
metaphorical  expression,  which  is  more  expeditious, 
and  need  in  that  sense  not  be  objected  to.  Why  in 
the  same  word  the  Hindu  pronounced  s,  and  the 
Greek  k,  is  a  question  that  cannot  be  answered, 
nay,  that  we  have  really  no  right  to  ask.  Who 
could  say  whether  the  q  of  quinque  and  the  c  of 
Ir.  coic  were  originally  p  as  in  irevre  (Proto-Aryan 
penqe)  1,  or  whether  the  initial  p  was  original,  and 
the  q  a  modification  of  it  ?  A  change  of  p  into  q 
is  so  exceptional  that  we  should  hesitate  to  admit 
it  except  in  languages  which  have  a  decided  gut- 
turalising  tendency,  such  as  Irish,  which  changes 
even  pascha  into  caisc  2. 

True,  certain  concomitant  circumstances  have 
been  discovered  by  Fick,  Ascoli,  and  others,  which 
seem  to  favour  or  to  prevent  assibilation  and  labial- 
isation, but  that  is  very  different  from  saying  that 
we  are  able  to  account  for  such  changes.  It  is  very 
different  when,  as  in  Italian,  we  can  say  that  there 
is  an  almost  mechanical  necessity  for  our  pronouncing 
c  before  i  or  e  as  ch.  Here  we  have  a  clear  case  of 
Nacheinander,  of  successive  change,  though  even 
here  the  first  start  may  be  traced  back  as  far  as 
Umbrian.  But  in  the  difference  between  Sk.  s 
and  Gr.  k,  between  Sk.  p.  and  Lat.  q,  we  have 
clearly  a  case  of  Nebeneinander,  of  parallel  dialectic 

1  Brugmann,  Grundriss,  §  321. 

2  J.  Bhys,  Lectures  on  Welsh  Philology,  p.  373. 


v]  TWO   KINDS   OF   GUTTURALS.  355 

modification,  which  is  due  to  phonetic  idiosyncrasies 
going  back  to  a  period  previous  to  the  Aryan 
Separation,  and  that  cannot  be  further  accounted 
for.  The  same  applies  to  the  labialising  and  non- 
labialising  of  the  gutturals.  Both  have  an  equal 
right,  and  the  causes  which  seem  to  favour  or 
prevent  the  process  of  labialising  are  only  assistant, 
but  not  efficient  causes.  These  changes  are  neither 
dynamic  nor  purely  mechanical,  they  are  individual, 
and  no  more  to  be  accounted  for  than  the  dh  of 
dha  and  the  d  of  da.  They  are  quite  different  also 
from  changes  due  to  certain  predilections  peculiar 
to  one  or  the  other  of  the  Aryan  languages  in  their 
separate  existence,  as,  for  instance,  we  may  truly  say 
that  Latin  has  a  predilection  for  qu,  and  therefore 
does  not  labialise  a  guttural  if  it  can  help  it. 

Thus,  if  we  take  the  guttural  or  palatal  of  hi,  we 
find  the  labial  in  iroivrj,  and  the  dental  in  oltto-tlo-ls, 
corresponding  to  Sk.  hiti,  &ayate,  Avest.  ka§na. 
Here  Latin  would  not  use  p  for  the  initial  guttural, 
and  if  poena  belongs  really  to  this  family  of  words, 
we  shall  have  to  accept  it  as  borrowed  from  Greek, 
unless  indeed  we  derive  it  from  a  totally  different 
root,  the  same  which  in  Latin  gives  us  purus,  punio, 
impune,  &c. 1 

These  phonetic  tendencies  and  idiosyncrasies  can- 
not be  used  with  any  amount  of  safety  for  historical 
purposes,  except  with  great  caution.  If  Bopp  con- 
cluded that  the  speakers  of  the  assibilating  languages 
must  have  separated  from  the  parent  stem  at  a  later 
time  than  the  other  European  languages,  he  went 
too  far,   while  Schleicher  hardly  went  far  enough 

1  See  Chips,  vol.  iii,  p.  193. 
A  a  2 


356  TWO   KINDS   OF   GUTTURALS.  [chap. 

when  he  denied  to  this  fact  any  historical  significance 
at  all,  and  ascribed  it  to  mere  accident.     The  whole 
idea  of  a  uniform  original  language,  free  as  yet  from 
all  dialectic  peculiarities,  is,  as  I  have  often  tried  to 
show,  a  mere  postulate,  unsupported  by  any  evidence, 
or  even  by  any  real  analogy.     As  long  as  we  know 
anything  of  any  language  we  know  it  in  a  state  of 
dialectic  fermentation,  and  the  germs  of  this  dialectic 
variety  as  between  the   great   branches  of  Aryan 
speech  can  only  be  referred  to  what  is  called  the 
Pan-Aryan  period.     That  the  idea  of  a  pedigree  of 
the  Aryan  languages  is  self-contradictory,  I  think 
I  showed  as  far  back  as  1872  \     There  are  dialectic 
changes  which  are  clearly  successive,  as  when  carus 
becomes  cher,  or  hafoc  becomes  hawk.     But  these 
changes  belong  to  a  later  and  altogether  different 
phase  ;  they  are  mechanical  and  are  produced  with 
almost  mechanical  precision,  while  the  old  dialectic 
varieties   as   between    Sanskrit,  Greek,    Latin   and 
German  (particularly  the  changes  included  under  the 
name  of  Lautverschiebung),  cannot  be  accounted  for 
as  successive  mechanical  changes  or  so-called  corrup- 
tions, but  have  to  be  accepted  as  we  accept  other 
facts  of  language,  as  collateral  varieties  and  as  purely 
spontaneous.     It  is  Ascoli's  and  Fick's  great  merit 
to  have  accounted  for  some  of  these  variations,  and 
their  observations  possess  therefore  great  practical 
usefulness.     They  help  us  to  distinguish  between  the 
fates  of  what  used  to  be  called  gutturals  and  palatals, 
and  to  distinguish  again  among  gutturals  between 
those  that  are  liable  to  labialisation  and  those  that 
are  not ;  but  more  than  that  they  cannot  do. 

1  Strassburg  Lecture,  see  Chips,  vol.  iii,  p.  174. 


v]  TWO   KINDS   OF    GUTTURALS.  357 

We  know  now  that  there  is  a  whole  class  of 
languages  which  never  labialise  or  dentalise,  and 
that  in  certain  words  even  the  labialising  languages 
abstain  from  labialising  their  gutturals.  The  rules 
to  be  observed  are  therefore  that  in  the  assibilating 
languages,  the  linguo-palatals  appear  in — 

Sk.  Avestic.         Lit.  Slav. 

as  ^  s  (or  \sh)  s,  s  s  (sz)  s 

as  ^g  (for  z)  z,  z  z  z 

as  f  h  (for  zh)  z  z  z 

but  in  the  non-assibilating  languages — 

Gk.  Lat.  Celtic.  Ger. 

asx  c  c  k,  x,  g,  7 

as  y  g  g  k 

as  x  h,  g  S  S>  y 

In    the   non-assibilating  but   labialising   languages, 
the  true  gutturals  appear  in — 

Gk.  Lat.  Ir.  Brit.  Ger.     iinSk.,  Zend, 

as  k,  it,  r  (a)    (not  p)  c\  qu      c        p        xw2,  w,  x,  JLit.,  &  Slav. 

y,  f ,  15     (as  gutturals 
as  y,  0,  8  (C)     g,  gu,  v  g,  b   b,  g     k,  kw,  p 

as  x,  0,  0  gu,  v,  b,  f         g,  b    b,  g     w,  y,  (b) 

The  gutturals  liable  to  labialisation  are  sometimes 
written  and  printed  q,  g,  gh.  This  might  be  useful 
if  generally  adopted,  but  the  difficulty  is  to  get  the 
types  when  they  are  wanted.  In  words  where  the 
non-assibilating  (but  labialising)  languages  do  not 
labialise  their  gutturals,  these  gutturals  have  the 
same  fate  as  the  gutturals  and  what  we  call  the 
palatals  in  the  assibilating  languages. — 

Sk.  Gk.  Lat.     Ir.    Brit.       Ger.       Lit.      Slav. 

cji  k,  "*{  s,  \Jc      k       c        c         c       k,  x,  g,  7     k      k,  c,  c 

1  g,  %9  7        g        g         g  k  g      g'  d2>  dz 

(*§  kty  ^  gh       x     b,  g      g        g  g,  y        g      g,  dz,  dz 

1  Brugmann,  i,  p.  323,  note  4  ;  as  to  b  =  g,  see  p.  324. 

2  The  w  is  meant  for  Brugmann's  u,  the  y  for  5. 


358  TWO    KINDS    OF    GUTTURALS.  [chap. 

I  have  retained  throughout  the  old  names  of 
Gutturals,  Palatals,  and  Linguals,  not  because  I  con- 
sider them  perfect  names,  but  because  there  is  a  very 
strong  objection  to  changing  technical  terms,  except 
when  there  is  an  absolute  necessity  for  it,  and  where 
they  can  be  replaced  by  other  technical  terms  which 
are  really  perfect.  No  one  who  attempts  to  pro- 
nounce in  succession  ka,  ke,  ki,  ko,  ku,  can  fail  to 
perceive  that  the  point  of  contact  in  what  Sanskrit 
grammarians  call  the  upper  instrument  is  not  the 
guttur,  but  that  it  is  shifted  to  the  velum,  from  the 
velum  to  the  soft  and  even  the  hard  palate. 
Guttural  as  a  translation  of  ksmthya  was  meant  to 
comprehend  all  these  various  contacts.  But  a  far 
more  correct  name  would  have  been  6rihvamuliya, 
Tongue-root  letters,  because,  however  much  the 
upper  instrument  may  vary  in  the  production  of  the 
gutturals,  the  root  or  the  lower  part  of  the  tongue  is 
the  essential  element  in  the  formation  of  this  large 
class  of  letters.  What  is  against  this  term  is  that  it 
is  Sanskrit,  and  rather  too  long,  but  Radical  would 
by  no  means  be  an  objectionable  term.  Talavya  or 
Palatal  has  generally  been  used  to  signify  the  mouille 
sounds  of  ch  and  j  in  church  and  join. 

Velar  may  be  as  good  a  term  as  guttural,  par- 
ticularly if  restricted  to  gutturals  liable  to  labialisa- 
tion, but  it  is  not  sufficiently  definite,  for  it  is  quite 
possible  for  a  man  who  has  lost  the  velum,  to 
pronounce  these  so-called  velar-consonants.  Lingual 
is  no  doubt  a  very  bad  term,  still  it  is  not  quite  so 
absurd  as  cerebral,  which  is  a  mere  mis- translation 
of  murdhanya.  I  had  many  years  ago  suggested 
Cacuminal  as  a  more  correct  translation  of  murdhanya, 
but  I  am  quite  willing  to  retain  lingual,  if  only  it  is 


v]  TWO    KINDS    OF    GUTTURALS.  359 

understood  that  lingual  comprises  not  only  the  six 
murdhanya  letters  (z,  ~s,  %,  I,  *fc  *J,  but  likewise  the 
linguo-palatals,  the  s,  z,  zh,  which  in  Sanskrit  are 
hidden  under  the  form  of  ^,  *r,  and  ^. 

Useful  as  these  observations  undoubtedly  have 
proved,  we  have  to  confess  that  the  cause  which 
produced  the  variety  of  the  gutturals  in  different 
Aryan  languages  remains  as  great  a  mystery  as  ever. 
Why  a  guttural  tenuis  should  in  Sanskrit  appear 
not  only  as  ^  k,  but  also  as  =q;  h,  and  ^s,  is  impossible 
to  say,  except  when  the  influence  of  a  vowel  can  be 
traced.  Again,  it  is  very  difficult  to  understand 
why  the  sounds  of  a  sonant  ^  s,  and  of  an  aspirated 
sonant  ^  s,  the  z  and  zh,  which  must  have  existed  in 
the  most  ancient  period  of  Sanskrit  by  the  side  of 
the  surd  ^s  (and  s  aspir.),  should  have  run  into  the 
sounds  of  ^(g  and  ^  h  ;  or,  if  not,  should  at  all  events 
in  writing  have  been  represented  by  these  letters. 

Phonetically  the  non-sonant  palatal  sibilant,  the 
^,  would  seem  to  have  really  represented  the  sound 
of  ch  in  the  German  ich,  and  we  know  how  in  Ger- 
man also  ik  and  ich  represent  dialectic  variations, 
while  as  a  matter  of  fact  foreigners  often  find  it 
extremely  difficult  to  catch  and  pronounce  the 
sound  of  ch  after  i,  and  pronounce  ish  (x*J  instead 
of  ich.  But  all  this  does  not  explain  the  fact  that 
certain  k's  remain  unchanged  in  Sanskrit  under 
exactly  the  same  circumstances  under  which  others 
are  changed.  We  have  both  cjj  k  and  ^  s  before 
any  vowel  and  consonant,  so  much  so  that  it  almost 
seems  as  if  the  chief  object  of  the  change  of  the 
guttural  into  ^  s  and  =q;  k  had  been  differentiation  of 
meaning.  The  change  of  ^  into  \,  which  is  restricted 
to    Sanskrit    and   Zend,  may   be   due    to    the   real 


360  TWO    KINDS    OF    GUTTURALS.  [chap. 

presence  of  an  i  or  to  the  supposed  presence  of  a 
palatal  e  after  it.  It  is  of  less  interest  to  us  because 
it  concerns  Sanskrit  and  Zend  only,  just  as  the 
dentalisation  of  certain  gutturals  is  restricted  to 
Greek.  It  is  in  fact  a  merely  mechanical  process, 
like  the  change  of  c  into  ch,  of  g  into  j  in  the 
Romance,  or  of  k  and  g  into  6,  and  dz  (afterwards  z) 
in  the  Slavonic  languages. 

The  change  of  ^  k  into  *^  s,  of  11  g  into  ^  g,  of 
^  gh  into  f  h,  seems  to  me  to  be  of  a  different 
character,  if  indeed  we  may  call  it  a  change  at  all, 
instead  of  accepting  it  as  a  mere  parallelism.  Its 
effects  extend  beyond  Sanskrit  and  Zend,  and  affect 
Armenian,  Lituanian,  and  Slavonic  as  well.  If  the 
palatalising  change  was  due  to  the  softening  influence 
of  a  palatal  vowel,  whether  i  or  e,  on  a  preceding 
guttural,  the  assibilation  admits  of  no  such  explana- 
tion, but  can  only  be  traced  back  to  a  peculiar  con- 
formation of  the  phonetic  organs  among  the  ancestors 
of  the  Lettic  and  Slavonic  races  as  well  as  of  Hindus 
and  Persians.  If  we  consider  how  powerful  in  ancient 
times  the  influence  of  a  single  individual  may  be- 
come, whether  by  imitation  or  by  heredity,  how  easily 
certain  peculiarities  of  pronunciation  may  be  per- 
petuated by  some  members  of  a  family  while  others 
are  dropped,  we  need  not  multiply  hypotheses 
beyond  necessity,  and  imagine  that  certain  branches 
were  separated  sooner  or  later  from  the  parent  stock, 
or  that  certain  consonants  were  first  infected  and 
then  healed  again,  for  we  must  never  forget  in  all 
these  researches  that  we  have  not  to  deal  with 
consonants  and  vowels  that  are  pronounced,  but  with 
human  individuals  who  pronounce  them,  and  who 
may  vary  their  pronunciation,  often  owing  to  mere 


v]  TWO    KINDS    OF    GUTTURALS.  361 

whims  or  to  organic  faults.  Some  people  lisp,  others 
mumble  and  speak  with  their  mouths  almost  closed. 
In  the  same  way  palatalisation  and  labialisation  may 
have  been  due  with  certain  classes  of  the  ancient 
Aryan  speakers,  as  they  are  with  us,  to  laziness 
or  want  of  sharpness  in  pronunciation,  perpetua- 
ted by  heredity.  If  the  breath,  instead  of  being 
checked  sharply  by  the  guttural  gate,  slides  audibly 
along  the  soft  palate,  or  if  it  strikes  the  labial 
shutters,  before  it  reaches  the  air  and  the  ear,  we 
get  the  parasitical  sounds  of  ky  and  kw  which 
lead  on  to  the  palatalised  and  labialised  gutturals, 
in  various  branches  of  Aryan  speech.  We  can 
observe  just  the  same  modification  in  English  kjind 
and  quarry  (for  carriere). 

Still,  though  the  causes  of  these  changes  are 
difficult  to  trace  and  may  at  first  be  due  to  individual 
accident  only,  their  effect  is  very  definite,  and  has 
therefore  proved  of  very  great  importance  and 
practical  utility  to  the  student  of  etymology. 

This  is,  of  course,  a  very  short  and  imperfect 
sketch  of  the  principal  phonetic  rules,  established 
by  successive  generations  of  comparative  philologists. 
On  most  of  them  there  is  no  longer  any  dispute,  and 
whenever  they  are  contravened  by  any  etymology  of 
ordinary  words  in  the  different  branches  of  the 
Aryan  family  of  speech,  it  is  incumbent  on  scholars 
to  give  sufficient  reasons  for  the  violation  of  these 
rules.  There  are  besides  a  number  of  more  minute 
rules  applying  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  Aryan 
languages.  On  these,  however,  we  need  not  dwell 
at  present,  but  point  them  out  when  they  become  of 
importance  in  the  etymology  of  certain  mythological 
names. 


362  PHONETIC    RULES    OF    PROPER    NAMES.         [chap. 


Application  of  Phonetic  Rules  to  Proper  Names. 

A  strict  observance  of  phonetic  rules  has  long  been 
considered  the  sine  qua  non  of  all  etymological 
research.  It  was  said  of  Bopp  and  Grimm  that  they 
had  been  the  first  who,  by  means  of  phonetic  rules, 
broke  in  the  wild  horses  of  etymology.  This  was 
perfectly  true  in  their  time,  and  yet  many  of  their 
etymologies  have  now  to  be  rejected  as  much  too 
wild.  The  fact  is  that  the  reins  of  etymology  have 
been  considerably  tightened  since  the  days  of 
Bopp  and  Grimm,  and  there  is  every  prospect  that 
they  will  be  tightened  more  and  more  with  every 
new  generation  of  scholars.  But  I  believe  that  in 
some  cases  these  same  reins  will  also  have  to  be 
loosened,  if  we  do  not  wish  our  horses  to  kick  and  to 
rear.  This,  no  doubt,  will  sound  very  strange  to  the 
ears  of  scholars  who  believe  that  phonetic  laws  are 
sufficient  to  solve  all  the  riddles  of  Comparative 
Philology.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  phonetic  rules  are 
sacrosanct  and  admit  of  no  exception.  In  principle 
this  is  quite  true,  but  in  practice  it  has  always  been 
found  necessary  to  limit  it  considerably.  Formerly 
it  was  the  custom  to  speak  of  exceptions  to  phonetic 
rules  as  sporadic  cases,  or  as  aira£  \ey6fxeva,  which 
might  easily  be  accounted  for  considering  that  many 
a  phonetic  rule  rested  itself  on  two  or  three  instances 
only.  Afterwards  analogy,  whether  it  is  called  true 
or  false,  was  relied  on  to  account  for  exceptions 
which  could  not  otherwise  be  reduced  to  law  and 
order,  and  lastly,  a  very  important  proviso  was  made, 
that  phonetic  rules  were  without  exception,  provided 
always  that  all  the  circumstances  were  known  to  be 


v]  PHONETIC    RULES    OF    LOCAL    NAMES.  363 

the  same.  But  here  the  great  difficulty  is  to  find 
out  in  every  case  whether  all  the  circumstances  are 
really  the  same,  and  whether  we  can  prove  them  to 
have  been  the  same  at  the  time  when  certain 
phonetic  changes  first  came  in.  I  pointed  out  many 
years  ago  that  phonetic  decay  affects  most  strongly 
those  words  which  have  lost  their  etymological 
clearness,  which  have  become  purely  traditional, 
have  ceased  to  be  appellative,  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word,  and  may  be  treated  as  nick-names  or 
proper  names  rather  than  as  appellatives. 

Local  Names. 

We  can  best  see  this  in  the  case  of  local  names, 
which  often  break  through  all  the  most  sacred  pho- 
netic laws.  No  phonetic  rules  would  suffice  to  help 
us  to  discover  the  original  form  and  meaning  of 
such  names  as  London,  York,  or  Birmingham.  We 
have  to  trust  to  history  rather  than  to  phonetic 
rules,  to  ancient  charters  rather  than  to  grammars 
and  lists  of  roots,  if  we  wish  to  discover  the  various 
stages  of  phonetic  change  through  which  such  names 
have  passed. 

It  was  very  natural,  for  instance,  to  discover  in 
Wormingford,  the  ford  of  the  Wormings,  i.e.  the  sons 
of  Worm,  and  we  all  remember  how  the  believers 
in  universal  totemism  discovered  in  these  sons  of 
Worm  1  the  descendants  or  the  worshippers  of  the 
worm  or  the  serpent,  and  therefore  the  abstainers 
from  worms  and  serpents  as  part  of  their  daily  food. 
Phonetically  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  against 
this  etymology.  But  the  circumstances  were  against 
it.      The  name  of  Wormingford  is  modern,  and  in 

1  Archaeological  Review,  iii,  357. 


364  PHONETIC    KULES    OF    LOCAL    NAMES.  [chap. 

spite  of  all  appearances  to  the  contrary,  is  corrupt, 
and  has  been  changed  regardless  of  all  phonetic 
rules.  Its  old  name  was  Withermondeford,  or,  as 
found  in  Doomsday  Book,  Widemondefort.  These 
are  facts  against  which  phonetic  rules  are  of  no  avail. 
No  one  would  derive  Worm  from  Withermonde,  or 
Withermonde  from  Worm,  whether  a  man  or  a  beast 
or  a  totem.  No  one  would  build  any  phonetic  rules 
on  the  successive  changes  which  Withermondeford 
underwent  before  it  became  Wormingford,  and  yet 
no  one  would  protest  against  their  identification, 
though  in  defiance  of  all  phonetic  rules  which  govern 
the  transition  of  old  into  modern  English.  Not 
even  the  believers  in  totems  and  totemism  would  be 
able  to  derive  much  comfort  from  these  two  names, 
unless  they  were  as  devoted  believers  in  totemism 
as  Mr.  Gomme,  who  sees  Sandrings  in  the  name  of 
Sandringham,  and  maintains  that  it  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  some  American  Indians  worship  sand  as 
their  totem,  and,  we  may  suppose,  abstain  in  conse- 
quence from  eating  sand. 

Loss  of  Meaning  entails  Change  of  Form. 

We  can  observe  two  currents  in  the  history  of 
local  names.  First,  they  lost  their  meaning  by  rapid 
and  careless  pronunciation,  and  secondly,  they  were 
endowed  with  new  meanings  that  seemed  to  agree 
with  their  corrupted  form.  In  English  this  is  par- 
ticularly the  case  with  Norman  words.  Thus 
D'Angerville  became  Dangerfield,  Montfort  became 
Mumford,  Marigny  both  Marney  and  Morning-thorpe 
and  many  more,  more  or  less  fanciful,  as,  for  instance, 
the  wild  derivation  of  Portwine  from  Poitevin,  of 
Sherry   from    Shiras,   of  Cognac   from    Iconium,  of 


v]        LOSS  OF  MEANING  ENTAILS  CHANGE  OF  FORM.      365 

Barley-sugar  from  sucre  brule,  and  at  last  sucre 
d'orge.  And  what  applies  to  local  names  applies 
equally  to  personal  names.  Beauchamp  is  now  pro- 
nounced and  even  written  Beecham,  Belvoir  has 
become  Beevor  or  Beaver,  &c. 

Christian  Names. 

And  what  is  strangest  of  all,  Christian  names, 
mostly  the  names  of  well-known  saints  and  martyrs, 
have  been  tortured  in  different  languages  to  such 
a  degree  that  no  phonetic  rules  would  give  us  a  key 
to  their  secret  history. 

Among  Christian  names  Cust  is  said  to  be  a  corrup- 
tion of  Constance,  Emmot  and  Empson  of  Emma, 
Gill  of  Juliane  1.  The  confusion  becomes  wilder  and 
wilder  if  we  go  into  the  history  of  the  commonest 
Christian  names,  and  follow  their  fates  in  the 
different  languages  of  Europe.  Jacob  or  Jacobus 
was  a  well-known  name  with  readers  of  the  Old  or 
the  New  Testament,  certainly  known  quite  as  well 
as  Hermes,  Mercury,  or  Sarameya,  with  students  of 
mythology.  Nothing  could  be  said  against  such 
simple  and  regular  changes  of  the  name  as  we  see 
in  It.  Giacobbe,  Span.  Jacobo.  But  when  we  come 
to  Fr.  Jacques,  It.  Giacomo,  Span.  Jago,  Jaime 
and  Diego,  Eng.  Jeames,  James,  Jim  and  Jimmy, 
our  phonetic  conscience  begins  to  feel  qualms. 
Neither  could  any  phonetic  rules  be  derived  from 
such  violent  changes,  nor  could  these  changes  be 
reduced  to  any  phonetic  principles. 

The  same  applies  to  the  phonetic  metamorphoses 
of  Johannes,  Joannes  into  Ital.  Giovanni,  Gian, 
Gianni,  Span.    Juan,   Fr.    Jean,  Germ.  Johann  and 

1  See  Quarterly  Keview,  Jan.  1895. 


366  CHRISTIAN    NAMES.  [chap. 

Hans,  Rus.   Ivan,  Eng.  John,  Jack  and  Jock.     No 
phonetic  rules  would  be  able  to  trace  the  steps  by 
which  Richard  became  Dick  ;  Henry,  Hal  and  Han ; 
Mary,  May,  Mol,  Pol,  and  Polly  ;  Magdalene,  Maud  ; 
Mathilda,  Maud  and  Patty  ;  Margarita,  Madge,  Peg, 
Meta  and  Gritty  ;  Adalina,  Adele,  Alisa,  Else  and 
Ethel.     While  Francis  becomes  Franz  in  Germany, 
Frances  appears  as  Fanny.      Some  of  these  meta- 
morphoses, however,  though  vouched  for  by  church- 
registers,  are  by  no  means  beyond  the  reach  of  doubt. 
That  Rob  or  Robin  should  be  the  lineal  descendants 
of  Robert  or  Rupert  is  clear  enough,  but  if  Bob  also, 
and  Dob  and  Pop  appear  as  claimants,  they  would 
find  it  hard  to  appeal  to  any  phonetic  law  in  support 
of  their  high   pretensions.     And  let  us  remember 
that  all  these  degenerate  descendants  claim  as  their 
common    ancestor    so    high-sounding    a    name    as 
Hruodperaht,  i.e.  Glory-bright,  changed  to  Ruot- 
perht  in  Middle  High  German,  to  Ruprecht   and 
Rupert  in  modern   German,   nay  even  to  Hob  in 
Hobgoblin.     We   shall   then   learn   what   phonetic 
catastrophes  are  possible,  nay,   have   been   real    in 
proper  names,  even  in  the  names  of  saints.      Some 
of  their  phonetic  changes  can,  no  doubt,  be  accounted 
for  by  analogy,  thus  as  the  change  of  Rob  into  Hob 
by  the  change  of  Rodger  into  Hodge,  i.e.  Hruadger, 
glory-spear,  k\vtoto£o<;.     But  there  remain  many  for 
which  it  would  be  hard  indeed  to  find  any  analogy 
whatever  in  the  whole  realm  of  human  speech,  and 
which  nevertheless  are  fully  accredited  by  historical 

evidence. 

Proper  Names  in  Greek. 

Nor  is  it  in  comparatively  modern  languages  only 
that   such  phonetic  riot  has  taken  place.     Modern 


v]  PROPER    NAMES    IN    GREEK.  367 

languages  are  really  under  the  sway  of  the  strictest 
phonetic  laws,  quite  as  much  as  Sanskrit  and  Greek. 
With  regard  to  Greek  proper  names,  Professor  Pott 
used  to  say,  that  sometimes  their  heads,  sometimes 
their  tails,  had  been  bitten  off.  Nor  need  we  wonder 
at  this.  Most  of  the  Greek  proper  names  were  so 
magnificent,  so  sesquipedalian,  that  they  could 
hardly  have  answered  their  purpose  in  daily  con- 
versation. How  could  a  child  always  be  called  by 
such  grandiloquent  names  as  Thrasyboulos,  Hero- 
dotos,  Apollodoros  or  Aristogeiton  ?  Hence  these 
names  were  nearly  all  abridged  in  order  to  render 
them  more  handy  for  loving  intercourse  or  stern 
command. 

This  led  to  the  introduction  of  the  so-called 
hypokoristic  or  coaxing  names  which  have  undergone 
the  most  violent  changes,  changes  to  which  no  other 
words  would  have  submitted.  They  have  sometimes 
lost  their  heads,  as  Pompos  for  Theopompos,  Straton 
for  Hippostratos,  and  often  their  tails,  as  Epaphras 
for  Epaphroditos,  Polybis  for  Polybios,  Antix  for 
Antigonos,  Nikomas  for  Nikomedes,  Kleopas  for 
Kleopatras  \  Sophilos  for  Sophokles,  Thrasyllos 
for  Thrasymados,  Zeuxis  for  Zeuxippos.  Some  of 
them  are  really  new  formations,  like  our  Tommy  for 
Tom,  Johnny  for  John. 

Proper  Names  of  Gods  and  Heroes. 

The  same  applies  to  the  names   of  heroes,  they 

also  are  shortened,  and  receive  new  suffixes  in  their 

hypokoristic  employment.     Thus  Herakles  is  called 

Heryllos,    Heraios,    Herykalos ;    Iphianassa,   Iphis  ; 

1  See  Fick  and  Bechtel,  Griech.  Personennamen,  pp.  16-36. 
Some  of  these  so-called  hypokoristic  names  are  dialectic  and 
ancient. 


368  PROPER    NAMES    OF    GODS    AND    HEROES.        [chap. 

Amphiaraos,     Amphis ;     Bellerophontes,     Belleros ; 
Atrometos,  Tromes. 

Nor  are  the  names  of  gods  exempt  from  this  treat- 
ment. We  find  what  may  be  called  coaxing  names 
such  as  Demo  for  Demeter,  Eleutho  for  Eleuthyia, 
Aphro  for  Aphrogeneia,  Trito  for  Tritogeneia. 


Dialectic  varieties  of  Proper  Names. 

In  some  of  these  cases,  however,  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  the  coaxing  name  is  really  a  shortening  or 
modification  of  the  fuller  name,  and  not  rather  a 
parallel  form  of  independent  origin.  Admitting  that 
Demo  is  a  shortening  of  Demeter,  we  can  hardly  say 
the  same  of  Deo,  which  may  be  on  the  contrary  a 
name  like  Jovis  by  the  side  of  Jupiter,  may  in  fact  be 
a  feminine  form  of  Dyaus  corresponding  to  the  dual 
Dyava,  in  the  Sanskrit  Dyava-pWthivi1.  Erechtheus 
and  Erichthonios  look  like  parallel  dialectic  varieties, 
and  do  not  necessitate  the  admission  that  Erechtheus 
was  the  shortened  hypokoristic  form  of  Erichthonios. 

Nor  do  I  see  that  much  would  have  been  gained  if 
we  supposed  that  Hermas,  Hermaon,  and  the  Thessal. 
Hermauos  had  been  shortened  on  purpose  from  Her- 
meias.  These  names  are  far  more  naturally  explained 
as  dialectic  varieties,  quite  as  much  as  the  Aeol. 
Poseidan,the  Ion.  Poseideon,  the  Arkad.Posoidan,the 
Thessal.  Poteidoun,  the  Lak.  Pohoidan,  by  the  side  of 
the  Att.  Poseidon.  The  same  applies  to  other  varieties 
such  as  Posoida,  Poteida,  Potida,  &c.  Why  should 
Kypris  be  taken  as  a  secondary  form  as  compared  with 
Kyprogeneia,  or  Aphro  as  compared  with  Aphrodite  ? 

1  L-  c.,  p.  376. 


v]  DIALECTIC    VARIETIES    OF    PROPER    NAMES.        369 

Hekate  does  not  seem  to  presuppose  Hekatebolos, 
nor  Phersis,  Phersephone,  nor  Aello,  Aellopous.  No 
one  would  feel  inclined  to  explain  Jason  ('idcrajv)  as 
a  shortening  of  Jasilaos,  Jasidemos,  or  any  other 
compound  beginning  with  Iolctl,  in  the  sense  of  heal- 
ing. What  these  names  really  teach  us  is  that  the 
gods,  being  worshipped  in  different  localities,  their 
names,  far  more  than  any  ordinary  words,  often 
preserved  their  local  dialectic  colouring.  Before 
we  analyse  and  compare  mythological  names,  we 
ought  to  remember  how  often,  particularly  in  Sans- 
krit, different  suffixes  are  used  after  one  and  the 
same  root,  to  form  substantives  of  exactly  or  very 
nearly  the  same  meaning.  From  the  root  sar,  to 
move  along,  for  instance,  we  find  sar-iman  and  sar- 
iman,  sar-a£,  sar-a^a,  sar-ati,  and  sar-awyu,  all  meaning 
wind;  sar-ani  is  a  path,  sar-ma  means  going;  sar-it 
is  a  river,  Sar-ayu  is  the  name  of  a  river.  Can  we 
doubt  then  that  Sar-awyii,  wind,  or  morning-wind,  is 
but  a  parallel  form  of  Sar-ama,  and  that  if  the  Greek 
opfjLT],  impetus,  German  Sturm,  corresponds  to  Sk. 
sarma,  as  a  fern.,  it  corresponds  equally  well  to  Sarama, 
the  mother  of  the  Sarameya  twins  ? 

There  is  always  something  sacred  about  divine 
names,  and  we  can  well  understand  that  Greeks 
speaking  different  dialects  in  their  various  settle- 
ments, should  retain  the  names  most  familiar  to 
them  when  speaking  of  their  gods.  If  we  keep  this 
in  mind  we  shall  be  better  able  to  understand  the 
anomalies  in  the  names  of  many  of  the  Greek  gods. 
Hermes  may  presuppose  the  fuller  form  Hermeias, 
but  Hermaon,  Herman,  and  Hermauos  are  clearly 
names  formed  independently,  though  all  from  the 
same  stem,  which  we  have  in  opfx-q,  in  Sk.  Sarama 

vol.  1.  b  b 


370         DIALECTIC  VARIETIES  OF  PROPER  NAMES.       [chap. 

and  her  offspring  Sarameya1,  to  my  mind  one  of  the 
best  established  facts  in  Comparative  Mythology, 
and  worthy  of  its  first  discoverer  and  patron,  Adalbert 
Kuhn. 

It  is  generally  admitted  that  Eileithyia  is  a  name 
of  the  same  deity  as  Eleuthyia  and  Eleutho,  but  how 
ei  can  replace  eu,  or  vice  versa,  has  never  been  ex- 
plained. Facts,  however,  are  facts,  whether  we  can 
explain  them  or  not,  and  not  even  the  most  deter- 
mined sceptic  would  deny  that  Apollon,  Apellon,  and 
Aploun  are  dialectic  varieties  of  the  same  name, 
whatever  outcry  might  be  raised  against  similar 
changes  in  other  words.  We  should  also  take  into 
account  a  peculiarity  in  the  formation  of  proper 
names  in  Sanskrit,  to  which  I  have  called  attention 
before.  We  are  generally  inclined  to  look  upon  a 
proper  name  as  something  settled  once  for  all,  as 
a  mark  that  cannot  be  altered  without  losing  its 
character,  as  something  no  longer  significative,  but 
purely  indicative.  But  that  is  not  the  case,  least  of 
all  in  Sanskrit.  Here  Ziandrasena,  /iandradatta  are 
as  good  as  ^Tandragupta.  We  have  a  striking- 
example  of  this  in  the  name  of  Buddha's  wife.  She 
is  called  Yasodhant,  i.e.  glory-bearing,  in  Pali,  and 
likewise  in  Sanskrit,  but  by  the  side  of  this  name  we 
also  find  Yaso-vati,  glorious,  while  Yaso-da,  glory- 
giving,  is  the  name  of  the  wife  of  Mahavira  among 
the  Camas  2.  And  what  we  see  in  India,  even  in 
the  case  of  living  persons,  we  see  again  and  again 
in  the   names  of  Greek  mythology.      It  makes  no 

1  As  to  the  elision  of  the  middle  vowel,  see  Harpyiae  and 
Arepyiae,  Fick,  Griech.  Personennamen,  p.  467. 

2  Senart,  Legende  du  Buddha,  p.  306. 


v]  DIALECTIC    VARIETIES    OF    PROPER    NAMES.         37 1 

difference  whether  the  mother  of  Jason,  for  instance, 
is  called  Polymele  or  Polymede  or  Polypheme.  Nay, 
she  is  recognised  even  under  other  names,  such  as 
Alkimede  and  Amphinome,  to  say  nothing  of  quite 
independent  names,  such  as  Arne,  Skarphe,  and 
Bhoio.  Instead  of  Eurynome,  the  mother  of  the 
Charites,  we  find  Eurymedousa,  Eunomia  and  several 
other  names  1.  All  these  are  facts  that  cannot  be 
ignored. 

But  if  I  mention  these  and  similar  anomalies,  it  is 
not  in  order  to  place  the  comparison  and  etymologies 
of  mythological  names  completely  beyond  the  reach 
of  phonetic  laws.  Far  from  it.  But  at  the  same 
time  laws  cannot  supersede  facts,  and  the  anomalous 
changes  in  the  names  of  ancient  deities  should  not 
be  ignored  by  any  conscientious  student.  If  facts 
teach  us  that  it  is  exceptional  for  proper  and  local 
names  to  follow  the  same  phonetic  rules  as  appella- 
tive nouns,  the  cases  in  which  the  proper  names  of 
gods  and  heroes  are  changed  in  strict  accordance 
with  phonetic  laws  should  be  looked  upon  as 
fortunate  rather  than  as  what  we  have  a  right  to 
expect.  Dialectic  peculiarities,  if  carefully  studied, 
are  much  more  likely  to  throw  light  on  the  varieties 
of  mythological  names  than  the  universal  phonetic 
rules  derived  from  the  classical  languages  whether 
of  the  Aryan  or  the  Semitic  family. 

With  all  this  there  is  little  danger  of  our  drifting 
back  into  the  etymologies  of  mythological  names 
that  were  favoured  by  ancient  Greek  grammarians, 
or  are  even  now  seriously  put  forward  by  classical 
scholars,    to    say    nothing    of  the    wild    guesses    of 

1  Gerhard,  Griech.  Mythologie,  s.  v. 
B  b  2 


372         DIALECTIC   VARIETIES  OF  PROPER  NAMES.        [chap. 

Semitic  scholars  in  the  seventeenth  and  again  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  We  shall  hardly  hear  again 
of  Persians  being  derived  from  Perseus,  Medians  from 
Medeia,  or  Ionians  from  Ion.  Nor  is  Apollon  likely 
to  be  explained  once  more  as  the  destroyer,  from 
airoWvvai,  because  Aeschylus  in  the  Agamemnon, 
v.  1 080,  said  : — 

"AnoXkov    AttoXXov 

ayviar    anoXXuv  ep.os. 

dn'oiXecraj  yap   ov   po\is  to   (jevrepov. 

The  ancients  may  be  pardoned  for  an  etymology 
of  Helena  such  as  we  find  in  the  Agamemnon  of 
Aeschylus,  v.  681  : — 

Ti's  ttot    uivojia^ev   a>h 

(S     TO     TTdV     CTT)TVpG)i 

pi]   tis  ovtw    ov)(   6pu>- 

ptv  TTpovoiaio-i   tov   neTrpoopevov 

yXaxjcrav   iv  TV^a    vepcov  ; — 

rav   hopiyapfipov   ap(piv(iK.r)    6'     EXfVttv 

€TTii    TTptTIOVTOIS 

eXevas,    eXavSpos,   iXenroXis.  .  .  . 

New  Etymologies  by  Professor  Bechtel.     Dionysos. 

The  ancient  Greeks  did  not  hesitate  to  derive 
the  name  of  Dionysos  from  his  father  (Zeus,  Aid?) 
and  his  supposed  birthplace  Nuo-77,  though  what 
the  meaning  of  such  a  compound  could  have 
been,  is  difficult  to  say.  But  I  do  not  think  we  are 
much  better  off  when  one  of  the  most  recent  etymo- 
logists, Prof.  Bechtel,  derives  the  same  name  from 
Dios  and  snutya.  What  is  such  a  compound  to 
mean  ?  Snu  in  Sanskrit  means  to  run,  to  flow,  and 
it  is  represented  in  Greek  by  w,  which  appears  in 
vioi,  evevcra,  &c.  Sniita  in  Sanskrit  would  mean 
running,  possibly  a  stream,  and  snutya  might  be  an 


v]  dionysos.  373 

adjective  of  snuta.  As  snu  is  often  used  with 
reference  to  mother  milk,  snuta  might  be  interpreted 
as  such,  and  snutya  as  fed  on  mother  milk.  This 
might  lend  some  weight  to  Corssen's  etymology  of 
nutrix  or  snutrix.  But  could  Dionysos  ever  have 
been  called  the  nursling  or  suckling  of  Zeus  1  Zeus 
has  performed  many  miracles,  he  actually  became, 
for  a  time  at  least,  the  parent  of  Dionysos 
(fjL7]porpa(f)7]^,  but  he  never  was  conceived  as  giving 
the  breast  to  this  wonderful  suckling.  Bechtel 
therefore  proposes  to  take  Dionysos  as  originally 
a  form  of  Zeus  whose  name  he  bears  in  the  first  part 
of  his  name.  The  second  part  is  then  derived  by 
him  from  vclFoj  (snavo)  to  flow.  The  god,  he  argues, 
was  called  '  the  flow  of  the  sky  or  of  light,'  and  is 
fundamentally  the  same  as  Zevs  Ncuos  of  Dodona, 
surrounded  by  the  NafiaSe?. 

Admitting  that  snutya  in  Greek  could  mean  flow, 
or  stream,  sky-stream  would  be  a  strange  name  for 
Dionysos,  and  his  identity  with  his  father  or  with 
the  source  whence  he  is  supposed  to  flow  forth,  is 
again  a  strong  demand  on  our  faith,  or  rather  on  our 
credulity.  But  what  about  the  phonetic  rules  ? 
First  of  all,  though  the  meaning  of  vdco  and  via)  is 
the  same,  it  would  be  well  to  keep  the  two  roots 
apart,  as  they  are  kept  apart  by  Curtius,  and  like- 
wise in  Sanskrit  in  snu  and  sna.  Thus  Curtius 
derives  votlos,  moist,  from  sna,  not  from  snu,  and 
likewise  m/xa,  moisture,  N^peus,  &c.  Secondly, 
nothing  could  be  more  regular  than  the  change  of  v 
into  ef  and  ev,  as  in  via),  veva),  and  vevcns.  But  Prof. 
Bechtel  says  nothing  to  account  for  the  long  v  of 
Dionysos,  though  he  is  aware  that  this  long  v  is 
anomalous,  and  cannot  be  matched  by  any  other 


374  DIONYSOS.  [CHAP. 

derivative  either  of  sna  or  snu.  If  his  etymology 
supplied  a  really  successful  explanation  of  the 
character  of  Dionysos,  this  lengthening  of  the  vowel 
might  possibly  be  condoned,  but  the  suckling  of 
Zeus  can  hardly  claim  such  indulgence. 

Kerberos. 

Classical  writers  had  not  much  to  say  as  to  the 
etymology  of  Kerberos,  still  the  statement  of  Aris- 
tarchos  at  Odyss.  xi,  14,  that  there  was  for  Kt/x/xeptot 
another  reading  Kepfiepcoi,  did  serve  as  a  useful 
hint,  and  led  Liddell  and  Scott  in  their  Greek 
Dictionary  to  suggest  Darkling  as  the  original 
meaning  of  Kepfiepos. 

Bechtel,  however,  who  is  not  generally  enamoured 
of  mythological  etymologies,  declares  positively  that 
Kepfiepos  belongs  to  a  root  Kepfi  =  serg,  to  be  stiff, 
from  which  also  Kopvufios,  the  uppermost  point  or 
head,  KpajfivXos,  tuft  of  hair,  and  Sk.  -srmga,  horn. 
Supposing  that  epos  in  KoXepos  stands  for  epos,  wool, 
he  takes  Kepfiepos  for  stiff-woolled.  Admitting  that 
Kerberos  or  dogs  in  general  had  wool  instead  of 
hair,  koXo  +  Fepos  would  surely  become  KoXoFepos 
and  KoXovpos  (Brugmann,  vol.  ii,  p.  45),  rather  than 
KoXepos. 

And  might  KoXepos  not  be  taken  as  a  parallel 
formation  of  koXos,  i.  e.  docked,  hornless,  without 
any  reference  to  epos,  wool  ?  As  to  a  root  serg,  to 
be  stiff,  it  has  certainly  left  few  traces  in  Greek  or 
Sanskrit,  for,  as  Curtius  already  saw,  Kopvpfios  may, 
like  Kopos,  Kopvdos,  and  like  Kopv^rf,  go  back  to  the 
same  stem  as  Koipa,  head,  Sk.  siras,  Lat.  cers-brum 
for  ceres-rum,  without  necessitating  the  admission  in 
Greek  and  Latin  of  a  separate  root  such  as  serg. 


v]  SARVARA.  275 

>S'arvara. 

If  then  we  remember  that  we  have  in  Sanskrit 
sarvara  in  the  sense  of  dark,  sarvarl  in  the  sense  of 
night,  surely  even  Prof.  Bechtel  would  admit  that 
a  knowledge  of  Sanskrit  may  sometimes  be  useful  in 
deciphering  the  names  of  Greek  mythology,  and  that 
it  is  dangerous  to  scoff,  instead  of  humbly  to  seek 
for  truth  from  whatever  quarter  it  may  come  to  us. 
On  the  myth  itself  more  hereafter. 

Zeus. 
Another  curious  stratagem  of  those  who,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  are  opposed  to  Comparative  Mytho- 
logy,   and   more    particularly    to    an   etymological 
derivation  of  Aryan  mythological  names  from  Vedic 
Sanskrit,   is  to   accept    everything  up  to  a  certain 
point,  and  then  to  draw  a  line  beyond  which  no  one 
is  to  go.     Most  people  have  somehow  learnt  that 
what    I  called  the   Lesson  of  Jupiter,  namely  the 
identity  of  the  names  of  the  supreme  god  Zeus  and 
Jupiter  with   that  of  Dyaus  in  the  Veda,  can  no 
longer  be  denied.     But  they  seem  to  imagine  that 
while  the  father  of  gods  and  men  was  known  under 
a  common  name   before  the  Aryan  Separation,  his 
wife,    his    sons    and    his    daughters,    his    grandsons 
and  granddaughters,  belong  to  a  different  age  or 
a  different  country,  and  they  seem  to  think  that  no 
attempt  should  be  made  to  trace  their  names  back  to 
the  same  common  Aryan  period.     The  strangeness 
of  such  a  supposition  does  not  seem  to  strike  them, 
or,  if  it  does,  they  do  not  feel  bound  to  account  for 
it.     They  cannot  help  indeed  allowing  to  the  solitary 
king  of  gods  a  few  companions  of  Aryan  extraction, 
but  if  there  is  the  slightest  flaw  in  the  baptismal 


376  ZEus.  [chap. 

register,  their  claim  to  a  place  in  Jove's  Olympus 
is  at  once  denied. 

£ios=Ushas. 

Eos,  the  Vedic  Ushas,  the  Lat.  Aurora,  cannot 
well  be  excluded,  for  she  claims  to  be  the  daughter 
of  Dyaus,  duhita  divas  in  the  Veda,  and  the  OvyaTrjp 
A105  in  Greek. 

Dioskouroi = Divas  putrasa/i. 

I  was  rather  surprised  to  see  that  the  A109  Kovpov 
also  have  been  allowed  to  pass,  for  their  name  is  not 
quite  the  same,  nor  are  the  Divas  putrasa^,  the  sons 
of  Dyaus,  exactly  the  same  as  the  A109  Kovpoi,  while 
the  now  favourite  identification  of  these  Kovpoi  with 
the  Kouretes  seems  to  me  extremely  bold,  consider- 
ing that  these  Kouretes  are  known  as  the  priests 
or  servants  of  Zeus,  but  not  as  his  sons  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  Aioo-KovpoL,  Kastor  and  Poly- 
deukes,  have  been  so  called,  as  the  sons  of  Leda 
and  of  either  Zeus  or  of  Tyndareus. 

Trito  and  Tritogeneia. 

As  to  Trito  in  Tritogeneia  and  its  comparison 
with  the  Vedic  Trita,  I  doubt  whether  comparative 
mythologists  would  accept  this  present  which,  on 
the  strength  of  mere  similarity  of  sound,  Professor 
Bechtel  is  willing  to  make  them,  unless  the  inter- 
mediate links  are  much  more  clearly  brought  out 
than  they  have  hitherto  been.  Still  less  would 
they  be  inclined  to  listen  to  his  emphatic  assevera- 
tion :  '  No  other  names  of  gods  can  be  assigned  to 
the  Aryan  Ursprache,  all  further  attempts  to  iden- 
tify the  names  of  Greek  and  Vedic  gods  are  futile  ! ' 


v]  HELIOS,   MENE,    AND    HESTIA.  377 

Helios,  Mene,  and  Hestia. 
No  pope  could  speak  with  greater  emphasis,  and 
yet  soon  after,  Helios  (Savelios),  Mene,  and  Hestia, 
that  is,  Sun,  Moon,  and  the  Fire  of  the  hearth,  are 
recognised  as  names  inherited  by  the  Greeks  from 
their  Aryan  forefathers.  Were  these  not  Devas  also  ? 
However,  we  need  not  be  frightened  by  such  brave 
words,  and  when  we  are  told  that  to-day  no  one 
would  fight  for  the  identity  of  Hermeias  and  Sara- 
meya,  all  I  can  say  in  return  is  that  no  one  would 
venture  to  say  so  who  had  once  more  read  Kuhn's 
masterly  essay  on  that  subject,  as  it  deserves  to  be 
read,  marked,  and  inwardly  digested. 

Erinys = Sarawy  ti- 
lt is  difficult  to  discover  any  real  progress  in 
mythological  etymology  if  we  are  told  to-day  that 
Erinys  as  a  name  of  Demeter  is  derived  from  ipivvco, 
to  be  angry,  and  this  from  iplF,  in  Lat.  rivinus. 
Rivinus  means  cW^Xos,  but  why?  Because,  like 
rivalis,  it  is  derived  from  rivus,  a  river,  rivinus  and 
rivalis  being  the  name  given  to  people  who  claim  the 
same  water  and  have  in  that  sense  become  rivals. 

These  words  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
epivvo),  to  be  angry,  still  less  with  Erinys.  To  derive 
Erinys  from  Ipivvoi  seems  to  me  much  the  same  as 
if  we  were  to  derive  Hermes  from  epixrjvcvco,  and  not 
epfxrjvevo)  from  Hermes  or  Hermaon,  the  messenger 
and  interpreter  of  the  gods.  What  the  real  con- 
ception was  which  was  embodied  in  Erinys  and  in 
the  Vedic  Sarawyu  we  shall  have  to  consider  here- 
after. For  the  present  it  must  suffice  to  have  shown 
that  she  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  rivinus,  or 
with  the  old  Bulgarian  rivinu,  avri^qko^ 


378  ERf  NYS  =  SARA2VYU.  [chap. 

Let  us  examine  a  few  more  of  the  mythological 
etymologies  of  the  day,  or  of  Prof.  Bechtel. 

Helios. 

Helios  we  are  told,  from  'AfeXios  or  'A/3e'Aio9,  is 
connected  with  Goth,  savil,  Lit.  saule,  sun.  True, 
but  the  oldest  form  of  all  is  the  Vedic  Svar 
or  Suvar,  gen.  suras,  so  that  the  derivation  Surya 
for  *Svarya  is  the  very  ditto  of  Helios  and  even  of 
Eelios. 

Athene. 

Athene  is  explained  very  simply,  no  doubt,  by 
Athanatos,  the  immortal,  but  how  Athanatos  was 
shortened  to  Athene,  and  why  Athene  alone  was 
called  Athanatos,  the  immortal,  we  are  not  told. 
A  hint  only  is  thrown  out  that  6ava  may  be  con- 
nected with  the  Vedic  adhvanit.  It  so  happens 
that  adhvanit  does  not  occur  in  the  Rig-veda  at  all, 
and  adhvanit  only  once, VIII,  6,  1 3,  yad  asya,  manyu/i 
adhvanit,  '  when  his  anger  ceased.' 

I  thought  it  useful  to  examine  a  few  of  these  more 
recent  etymologies  of  mythological  names,  to  show 
how  dangerous  it  is  to  attempt  them  without 
a  knowledge  of  Sanskrit,  and,  if  possible,  of  Vedic 
Sanskrit.  That  Athene  or  Athana  was  originally 
a  representative  of  the  light  of  the  morning,  then 
of  light  and  wisdom  in  general,  born  from  the  head 
of  Dyaus  (Divo  murdhnaA) 1,  and  that  her  name  is 
the  same  as  the  Vedic  Ahana,  is  as  certain  as  any- 
thing can  be  in  comparative  mythology.  At  present, 
however,  I  am  not  concerned  in  defending  it  and 
in    answering    all    the    objections   that   have    been 

1  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  623. 


v]  ATHENE.  379 

raised  against  it  during  the  last  thirty  years  ; — this 
I  shall  have  to  do  elsewhere.  I  am  only  anxious  to 
show  that  the  latest  etymologies  are  not  always  the 
best,  however  confidently  they  may  be  advanced. 
I  am  not  afraid  to  confess  that  even  if  the  Greek 
dentalisation  of  the  h  in  ah,  ahan,  and  ahana  could 
not  have  been  justified,  the  material  coincidences 
between  Ahana,  as  Dawn,  and  Athene  were  far  too 
strong  to  be  upset  by  this  difficulty.  We  only 
learn  once  more  how  dangerous  it  is  to  speak  of 
a  phonetic  rule  as  liable  to  no  exception,  when  the 
number  of  cases  on  which  such  rules  rest  is  often 
not  more  than  three  or  four,  so  that  one  single  praty- 
udaharana  or  counter-instance,  would  be  sufficient 
to  modify  or  to  upset  it. 

Poseidon. 

Much  has  been  said  in  praise  of  a  new  etymology 
of  Poseidon.  Fick  proposed  to  connect  it  with  olSeco, 
rarely  olSdco,  to  swell,  oto>a,  the  swelling  of  the 
sea,  or  the  sea  itself.  With  the  preposition,  7ro's  for 
7roTi,  Tros-eih-dcov  is  supposed  to  have  meant  the 
swell.  The  transition  of  npoTL  to  777309  is  intelligible 
enough,  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  Doric  ttot'l 
takes  the  place  of  irporL  But  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  in  ancient  Doric — (and  the  name  of 
Potidas  is  supposed  to  be  old) — the  final  t  before 
a  vowel  is  not  elided,  and  if  Boeckh  admitted  it 
once  in  Pindar,  0.  vii,  90,  this  would  probably  not 
be  regarded  as  a  valid  excuse  for  Potidas.  Secondly, 
there  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  no  other  case  where  iros 
stands  as  a  preposition  before  a  verb.  Then  there 
is  the  real  difficulty  of  the  short  1  in  Trocrlhrjcov  which 
cannot  be  separated  from  ttoo-elSmp.     I  mention  all 


380  POSEIDON.  [chap. 

this  not  as  in  my  opinion  fatal  to  the  etymology  of 
Poseidon,  but  only  as  showing  how  easy  it  is  to 
start  minute  objections  to  almost  any  mythological 
etymology,  and  how  much  more  difficult  to  remove 
them,  or  to  account  for  them.  What  makes  me  hesi- 
tate much  more  before  accepting  the  etymology  of 
Poseidon  as  the  On-sweller  is  the  purely  descriptive 
character  of  the  name  of  this  son  of  Kronos,  though 
until  a  better  etymology  is  suggested,  which  I  shall 
hope  to  do  further  on,  we  may  perhaps  be  allowed 
under  reserve  to  retain  it.  I  see,  however,  that 
Brugmann,  though  giving  all  the  dialectic  varieties 
of  the  name,  does  not  endorse  Fick's  etymology. 

Hermes. 

That  the  name  of  Hermes  may,  as  Prof.  Bechtel 
says,  be  connected  with  opfxrj,  and  therefore  with 
Sk.  sarmaA  will  hardly  be  questioned,  but  whether 
epfxa  in  epfx  ohvvdoiv  (II.  iv,  117)  has  anything  to  do 
with  it,  is  extremely  doubtful.  The  very  verse  in 
which  it  occurs  is  known  to  be  suspicious,  and 
though  I  should  not  like  to  adopt  the  positive 
tone  of  classical  scholars  that  ep/xa  cannot  have 
had  a  meaning  akin  to  opixrj,  it  may  be  as  well 
to  point  out  that  there  are  other  words  from  which 
epfjia  might  be  derived,  whether  sar  (sero,  series), 
var,  to  shield,  or  var,  to  observe. 

Here. 

Here,  we  are  told  by  Prof.  Bechtel,  cannot  be 
separated  from  Heros,  and  as  Heros  means  the 
protector,  she  is  the  protectress  in  general,  the  pro- 
tecting spirit  '  in  dem  alles  Schutzgeisterthum  sich 


V]  HERE.  381 

einheitlich  zusammen  fasst,'  whatever  that  may 
mean.  If  we  should  ask  why  this  quintessence  of 
heroism  or  this  incarnation  of  all  protecting  spirits 
should  be  the  declared  enemy  of  the  greatest  of  all 
heroes,  whose  very  name  is  connected  with  her  own, 
we  are  oracularly  told  that  her  enmity  to  Herakles 
must  be  understood  as  '  mythologisch  richtig.'  Lastly, 
Here's  opposition  to  Zeus,  the  god  of  the  sky,  is  ex- 
plained as  an  expression  of  the  opposition  between 
the  old  spirit-faith  and  the  unity  of  the  godhead '. 
Whatever  this  old  spirit-faith  may  have  been,  Here, 
as  far  as  we  know,  was  exactly  of  the  same  flesh 
and  bone  as  Zeus.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Kronos 
and  Rheia,  nay,  she  was  the  sister  of  Zeus.  Zeus 
was  devoted  to  her,  and  confided  to  his  sister  what 
he  would  confide  to  no  one  else.  Who  can  forget 
their  marriage  as  described  in  the  Iliad  ?  She  is 
almost  the  only  legitimate  wife  among  the  Olympian 
gods,  hence  the  protectress  of  marriage  and  birth, 
and  her  position  as  irorvia,  mistress,  as  6/xoOpovos, 
consort,  /3acrtXts,  queen,  is  unquestioned  in  spite  of 
the  matrimonial  squabbles  which  seem  to  have  been 
as  inevitable  among  the  Olympian  gods  as  in  the 
best  regulated  families  on  earth.  To  attempt  to 
explain  these  amusing  squabbles  between  Zeus  and 
Here  as  remnants  of  an  opposition  between  Seelen- 
glauben  and  Gotteseinheit  shows  a  wonderful  want 
of  appreciating  the  poetry  of  Homer  and  the  human 
elements  that  pervade  all  mythology,  and,  more 
particularly,  the  mythology  of  the  Greeks. 


1  '  Dagegen  hat  in  ihi'em  Widerstreben  gegen  den  Himmels- 
gott  der  alte  Widerspruch  des  Seelenglaubens  mit  der  Gottesein- 
heit seinen  Ausdruck  gei'unden.' 


382  HERE    AND    SVARA.  [chap. 

Here  and  Sv&r&. 

We  have  no  satisfactory  etymology  of  heros..  said 
to  be  svar- vat,  or  of  Herakles,  but  why  Here  was 
called  Here  is  not  difficult  to  discover.  We  must 
not  imagine  that  the  Vedic  poets  can  supply  us  with 
names  for  every  one  of  the  Greek  deities,  but  much  is 
gained  if  we  can  find  in  the  Vedic  poetry  words  and 
ideas  that  throw  light  on  the  names  and  concepts 
of  Greek  deities.  If  there  was  a  name  in  the  Veda 
accurately  corresponding  to  Here,  it  would  have  been 
svara,  that  is,  an  adjective  derived  from  svar  with 
the  feminine  termination  a,  and  lengthening,  of  the 
radical  vowel.  Now  svar  in  the  Veda  is  the  name 
not  only  of  the  bright  sun,  but  likewise  of  the 
bright  sky.  From  it  an  adjective  could  be  formed 
svarya,  contracted  to  Surya,  the  recognised  name 
for  the  sun  in  Sanskrit,  while  Surya  is  in  the  Veda 
a  subordinate  and  feminine  representative  of  the 
sunlight.  If  Zeus  was  Dyaus,  the  bright  sky,  what 
could  be  a  more  appropriate  name  for  his  wife  than 
Svara,  Here,  the  Dea  Urania  coelestis,  originally,  it 
may  be,  the  bright  air  on  which  the  sky  rests  ?  It  is 
easy  to  say,  But  there  is  no  such  goddess  in  the  Veda. 
True,  neither  is  there  a  goddess  Hestia  in  the  Veda, 
yet  its  etymological  connection  with  the  Sk.  root 
vas  is  recognised  by  everybody,  though  on  phonetic 
grounds  alone  it  would  be  impossible  to  determine 
whether  it  was  derived  from  the  root  vas,  to  shine, 
or  the  root  vas,  to  dwell 1.     A  few  more  specimens 


1  See  Curtius,  Grundztige,  p.  399  ;  Koth  in  K.  Z.,  xix,  p.  215  ; 
Chips,  vol.  iv,  p.  xxvii ;  Fick,  Indog.  Worterb.  s.  v.  veso,  ich 
weile. 


v]  HERE    AND    SVAEA.  383 

may  be  useful  to  show  what  we  may  have  to  expect 
whenever  the  etymology  of  mythological  names  is 
left  in  the  hands  of  scholars  who  have  nothing  but 
contempt  for  Vedic  writings. 

Phoibos. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Phoibos,  whatever  its 
etymology  may  be,  means  in  Greek  pure,  bright, 
radiant,  and  ^>oi/3aoj,  to  purify.  Phoibos  was  origi- 
nally the  name  of  an  independent  deity,  but  when  it 
became  the  epithet  of  Apollon,  it  meant,  what  Phoibe 
meant,  when  it  became  the  epithet  of  Artemis, 
namely  brilliant.  It  need  not  have  been  a  name 
of  the  sun,  or  of  Helios,  but  it  certainly  was  a 
name  that  could  only  be  applied  to  bright,  matutinal, 
or  solar  deities.  I  am  not  ashamed  to  say  that  I 
know  of  no  satisfactory  etymology  of  <£oi/3o<?,  but 
when  we  are  told  that  cfiolfios  meant  originally 
a  physician  and  that  the  name  was  applied  to 
Apollon  because  from  the  beginning  Apollon  was 
the  physician  of  the  gods,  I  cannot  follow.  Apollon 
was  not  from  the  beginning  a  physician.  On  the 
contrary,  he  was  looked  upon  as  the  healer  of  diseases 
because,  first  of  all,  and  very  much  like  the  Vedic 
Kudra,  he  was  supposed  to  send  pestilence  and  other 
diseases  by  his  arrows.  He  who  could  send  sick- 
ness was  supposed  to  be  able  to  send  healing  also. 
Whether,  as  we  are  told,  Houduv  branched  on  from 
Apollon,  or  was  identified  with  Apollon  at  a  later 
time,  is  a  question  that  I  should  not  venture  to 
answer.  But  why  should  <£oi/3o9  have  meant  a 
physician  %  Because  it  was  derived,  as  we  are  told, 
from  bhisha^.  Bhisha^  in  Sanskrit  means  to  heal, 
bhisha(/a  means  healthy,  bheshar/am,  medicine.    This 


384  PHOIBOS.  [CHAP. 

root  bhishary 1  is  very  obscure  in  Sanskrit,  being  an 
anomalous  root  of  two  syllables.  Pott  explained 
bhishakti  as  a  compound  abhi-shakti,  meaning  he 
heals.  In  Sanskrit,  however,  abhishac/  means  really 
he  curses.  That  might  not  be  a  serious  objection, 
for  abhi-shar/  might  well  have  meant  originally  to 
stick  something  on  a  wound,  or  pass  the  hands  over 
a  person  to  heal  him. 

Prof.  Bechtel,  however,  takes  this  root  as  a  simple 
root  and  reduces  bhish-na-(7,  or  bhish-a-^  to  bhish(/, 
or  rather  bhesh^,  originally  bhoish</,  and  he  sees  in 
this  bhoishf/  the  etymon  of  <£oi/3o9.  Passing  over 
the  phonetic  difficulties,  such  as  the  dropping  of  the 
sibilant,  and  the  change  of  a  final  g  to  b,  what  can 
we  do  with  an  etymology  that  would  give  to  </kh/3o? 
the  meaning  of  surgeon  (^eipcop),  but  not  of  bright  ? 
As  I  said  before,  I  am  not  going  to  propose  a  new 
etymology  of  Phoibos,  but  considering  the  great 
similarity  between  the  characters  of  Apollon  and 
Puclra,  as  pointed  out  by  Kuhn,  Bhava,  as  another 
name  of  Rudra,  would  certainly  lend  itself  to  a  change 
from  <j>6j3os  or  cf>6fiios  to  (f>ol(3os,  just  as  cpovos  leads 
to  (f)OLvos  through  </>oVio?. 

Apollon. 

And  what  shall  we  say  to  the  new  etymology  of 
Apollon  which  derives  this  god  of  light  from  aTreikyj, 
threatening,  or  Latin  ap-pelare  ?  Could  a  physical 
god,  like  Apollon,  have  in  the  first  instance  been 
called  an  addresser,  from  d^eWa,  Ansprache  (Appell)  1 
We  should  at  all  events  expect  to  be  told  what  the 
connecting-links  could  have  been  between  the  son 

CD 

1  Science  of  Thought,  p.  350. 


v]  APOLLON.  385 

of  Zeus  and  Leto,  the  brother  of  Artemis,  the 
Delios,  and  the  Addresser,  supposing  even  that  such 
a  meaning  could  be  supported  by  stronger  evidence 
than  we  have  at  present. 

Ares. 

If  Ares(fi),  another  son  of  Zeus  and  Here,  could  be 
explained,  as  we  are  told,  by  simply  spelling  his 
name  with  a  small  a  as  aprjs,  then  why  should  not 
Xdpts  be  explained  by  x^/51^  Ceres  by  ceres,  the 
Sabine  word  for  bread,  and  Janus  by  janua  ? 

Artemis. 

Again,  if  we  are  asked  to  derive  Artemis,  the  sister 
of  Apollon,  from  apre/x/if?,  fresh,  hale,  one  only  wonders 
that  the  Greeks  should  ever  have  been  in  doubt  as 
to  the  origin  of  the  names  of  their  gods,  and  parti- 
cularly of  that  of  Artemis,  the  goddess  alev  dSfja/JTr), 
always  unwedded.  How  to  account  for  dialectic  forms 
such  as  "ApTafMis-LTos,  and  even  'Apra/^vrt  must  then 
be  left  entirely  as  an  open  question. 

Aphrodite. 

The  most  startling  etymology,  however,  which 
Prof.  Bechtel  has  presented  to  us  is  that  of  Aphro- 
dite. That  the  Greeks  thought  of  her  as  born  from 
the  foam  of  the  sea,  shows  at  all  events,  as  well  as 
her  names  of  Brychia,  Anadyomene,  and  Haligeneia, 
that  her  rising  from  the  sea  was  compatible  with 
the  traditional  conception  of  that  ancient  incarna- 
tion of  beauty  and  loveliness.  As  wife  of  Hephaistos 
she  is  distinctly  called  Charis,  one  of  the  numerous 
representatives  of  the  Dawn.  Her  heavenly  nature  is 
indicated  by  the  names  of  Ourania  and  even  of  Here. 
Now  we  are  told,  however,  and  in  a  most  persuasive 

VOL.  I.  C  C 


386  APHRODITE.  [chap. 

tone,  that  the  first  name  given  to  this  goddess  of 
love  was  connected  with  fordus,  pregnant,  and  be- 
cause she  encouraged  love  and  marriage,  she  is 
supposed  to  have  been  celebrated  and  worshipped 
as  the  Pregnant  Woman.  Fortunately  Greek 
sculptors  did  not  take  this  view  of  her,  and  the 
very  author  of  this  etymology  is  evidently  afraid 
of  the  consequences  which  it  would  involve.  He 
qualifies  it,  therefore,  as  quite  uncertain.  But  he 
adds,  acfrpos  may  be  a  weak  form  of  ve<f>po<;,  kidney, 
though  he  fortunately  passes  other  possibilities  over 
in  silence. 

The  only  possibility  which  I  can  see  is  that  this 
bright  and  beautiful  goddess  represented  the  Dawn, 
and  was  therefore  by  Homer  considered  worthy  of 
such  parents  as  Zeus  and  Dione,  As  rising  from 
the  sea,  a  kind  of  female  Apam  napat,  she  might, 
besides  the  name  of  Charis,  Ourania,  and  Enalia, 
have  received  the  name  of  Aphrogeneia,  born 
from  the  froth  of  the  sea,  unless  we  take  aphros 
in  the  sense  which  abhra  has  in  Sanskrit,  namely 
cloud  or  sky.  This  would  represent  her  as  what 
she  is,  one  of  the  many  daughters  of  the  sky. 
All  this  shows  at  all  events  that  Aphrodite  was 
a  beautiful  creation  of  the  Greek  mind,  however 
much  it  may  afterwards  have  been  contaminated 
by  contact  with  similar  goddesses  of  the  East.  To 
suppose  that  Astarte  was  the  original  of  the  name 
of  Aphrodite  would  be  the  same  as  to  take  Moloch 
as  the  original  of  Zeus  Meilichios. 

I  have  given  these  few  mythological  etymologies 
as  specimens  of  what  we  have  to  expect  from  scholars 
who  scoff  and  sneer  at  every  comparison  between 
Greek   and  Vedic  deities,  and  at  every  etymology 


v]  APHRODITE.  387 

that  dares  to  appeal  to  Sanskrit  roots.  They  dis- 
pose of  a  comparison  such  as  Ouranos  =  Varuna 
by  calling  it  a  failure,  without  any  attempt  to  prove 
it  so,  nay,  they  maintain  that  Erinys  cannot  be  the 
same  word  as  Sara^yu,  because  it  is  derived  from 
the  Greek  ipivvco,  to  be  angry.  Would  they  derive 
SaKpv  from  SaKpvetv,  or  epcs  from  epi^eiv  ? 

If  these  are  the  best  specimens  of  what  is  called 
Modern  Philology,  I  confess  that  I  still  belong  to 
the  dark  ages.  I  am  delighted,  no  doubt,  whenever 
the  comparisons  of  my  thological  names  are  in  strictest 
accordance  with  the  phonetic  rules  that  apply  to 
nouns  and  verbs,  but  I  should  consider  it  simply 
pharisaical  to  object  to  such  an  equation  as  Vanma 
=  Ovpavos  considering  the  similarity,  nay  almost 
identity,  of  Varu^a  with  Ahura  Mazda  on  one  side, 
and  of  Varmia  with  Ovpavb<;  euyou?  virepOev,  ao-Tepoeus, 
on  the  other. 

So  much  may  suffice  to  explain  my  present  posi- 
tion with  regard  to  phonetic  rules  when  applied  to 
proper  names.  I  formerly  agreed  with  Curtius  that 
phonetic  rules  should  be  used  against  proper  names 
with  the  same  severity  as  against  ordinary  nouns 
and  verbs  (Grundziige,  p.  1 20).  I  am  now  convinced 
that  Benfey  and  others  were  right  in  protesting 
against  this  extreme  view,  very  much  on  the  strength 
of  facts  which  could  not  be  accounted  for  without 
placing  a  certain  restriction  on  the  universal  sway 
of  phonetic  rules.  I  am  glad  to  see  Professor  Victor 
Henry  expressing  the  same  conviction  when  he  says : 
'  Mais  les  alterations  de  noms  propres  sont  si  aisees, 
et  les  causes  en  sont  si  fuyantes,  qu'on  ne  peut  en 
bonne  justice  exiger  de  la  mythographie  l'obser- 
vation    absolument   rigoureuse    de   la   phonetique ' 

c  c  2 


388  APHRODITE.  [CHAP. 

(Quelques  Mythes  naturalistes,  p.  6).  Of  course  this 
will  be  called  backsliding  and  many  other  hard 
names,  but  in  the  end  facts  generally  carry  the 
day,  even  against  scribes  and  pharisees. 

Lest  it  should  be  supposed,  however,  that  phonetic 
rules  are  like  natural  laws,  and  exceptions,  entirely 
contra  naturam.  I  add  a  few  remarks  on  words 
which  are  not  proper  names,  and  which  nevertheless 
offend  against  some  fundamental  phonetic  law. 

Let  us  take  such  common  words  as  ovk,  not,  and 
€K,  out.  They  run  counter  to  a  well  ascertained 
principle  of  the  Greek  language  that  no  consonants 
*  are  tolerated  in  Greek  as  finals  except  v,  p,  <s  ;  yet 
these  two  cases  e/c  and  ovk  (before  vowels  or  at  the 
end  of  a  sentence)  are  sufficient  to  upset  a  rule  that 
seemed  to  be  based  on  a  physical  inability  on  the  part 
of  the  Greeks  to  pronounce  a  final  muta,  nor  has  it 
been  possible  to  detect  any  reason  why  this  rule 
should  have  been  broken  in  these  two  cases  only, 
particularly  as  there  was  e£  by  the  side  of  4k,  and  ov 
and  ovyi  by  the  side  of  ovk. 

Anomalous  Words  of  a  more  Ancient  Stratum. 

Such  anomalies  occur  most  frequently  in  words  of 
frequent  usage,  because  the  very  frequency  of  their 
usage  gave  them  the  power  to  resist  the  levelling 
influences  of  later  phonetic  tendencies.  In  many 
languages  such  verbs  as,  to  be,  to  go,  to  know,  &c, 
nouns  such  as  father,  mother,  daughter,  &c,  adjectives 
such  as  good  and  bad,  are  mostly  irregular,  simply 
because  they  have  retained  their  ancient  forms. 
Why  should  the  a  of  nar-qp  and  pater,  be  i  in  Sk. 
pitar  ?  Why  should  [irJT-qp  have  the  acute  on  the 
first,  Sk.  matar  on  the  last  syllable  ?     The  apparent 


v]  WORDS    OF    A    MORE    ANCIENT    STRATUM.  389 

irregularities  of  duhitar  and  OvyaTrjp  have  been 
discussed  again  and  again,  for  the  last  time  by 
Bartholomae  in  K.  Z.,  xxvii,  p.  206  ;  yet  in  spite  of 
all,  no  one  ever  doubted  the  common  origin  of  these 
words.  What  can  be  more  different,  phonetically, 
than  kv  and  $v,  yet  Sw^o?  is  but  a  variety  of  Kvefyas  l  ? 
What  can  be  more  certain  than  that  e/c^rt  and  aexrjTL 
are  connected  with  the  Sk.  vasat,  yet  there  is  as  yet 
no  explanation  of  the  final  1  after  the  termination  of 
the  ablative  ?  Why  did  Sk.  Aatvar,  four,  quatuor, 
lose  its  first  syllable  in  Sk.  turya  instead  of  Aaturya, 
the  fourth,  and  in  rpdire^a  instead  of  TeTpdne^a  % 
Why  is  the  suffix  of  Aaturtha,  the  fourth,  th  in 
Sanskrit,  but  t  in  Latin  quartus  and  Greek  Teraproq  2  ? 
All  these  anomalies,  and  a  hundred  more,  have  simply 
to  be  accepted,  till  more  light  can  be  thrown  on 
them,  but  they  could  never  induce  us  to  doubt  the 
real  relationship  of  such  words. 

I  fully  recognise  the  dangers  of  such  a  theory,  if 
it  were  made  an  excuse  of  every  kind  of  phonetic 
licence,  but  we  must  learn  to  accept  facts  such  as  they 
are.  The  difference  between  historic  and  prehistoric 
phonetic  laws  has  been  recognised  by  the  best 
scholars  from  Curtius  to  Brugmann  and  Joh.  Schmidt, 
and  there  is  of  course  no  class  of  words  which  has 
a  greater  right  to  claim  exception  from  the  recog- 
nised historic  phonetic  laws  than  the  oldest  mytho- 
logical names.  If  a  substantial  harmony  between 
two  characters  in  cognate  languages  and  cognate 
mythologies  has  once  been  established,  the  slight 
phonetic  differences  which  we  observe,  for  instance, 

1  On  xve'cpas,  \j/(4>as,  8v6(pos,  see  K.  Z.,  xxxii,  p.  357. 

2  Brugmann,  Grundriss,  vol.  ii,  pp.  229,  473. 


390  WORDS  or  A  more  ancient  stratum.      [chap. 

between  Varuna  and  Ouranos,  must  give  way.  It 
would  of  course  be  quite  different  if  wTe  could  prove 
the  independent  formation  of  the  Greek  name 
Ouranos  from  any  other  root,  such  as  that  proposed 
by  Wackernagel,  the  root  varsh,  which  would  make 
the  Greek  Ouranos  a  god  of  rain  (K.  Z.,  xxix,  p.  129). 
In  that  case  the  equation  Varmia  =  Ovpavos  would 
fall  at  once,  just  as  the  equation  Herakles  =  Hercules 
fell,  though  Mommsen  supposed  that  he  could  prove 
the  existence  of  a  Roman  gcd  Herculus,  derived 
from  a  postulated  Latin  hercere,  with  the  same 
meaning  as  the  Greek  epKeiv,  and  attested,  as  he 
thought,  by  horctum  and  forctum.  Grassmann,  how- 
ever (K.  Z.,  xvi,  p.  104),  had  no  difficulty  in  showing 
that  Greek  epKeiv  could  never  be  hercere  in  Latin, 
because  initial  h  in  Latin  never  answers  to  initial 
spiritus  asper  in  Greek.  In  such  cases  respect  for 
phonetic  laws  regulating  the  relations  between  Greek 
and  Latin,  is  perfectly  correct,  and  the  old  view 
which  looks  upon  Heracles,  Hercles,  Hercoles,  and 
Hercules  as  various  Latin  renderings  of  the  Greek 
'RpaKkrj^,  has  very  properly  been  reinstated. 

There  is  one  word,  to  which  I  must  refer  once  more 
in  order  to  dispose  of  it  definitely,  the  Greek  Oeos,  god, 
which  has  actually  been  divorced  from  the  Sk.  deva, 
bright  and  god,  and  deus  in  Latin,  simply  on  the  ground 
of  phonetic  incompatibility.  But  with  all  due  respect 
for  phonetic  laws,  my  respect  for  the  logic  of  facts  is 
too  strong,  and  I  have  always  held  ]  that  deos  must 
remain  part  of  the  same  cluster  of  words  as  Zeus,  A 109, 
Aloovt)  8105  (SlFlos),  evhios,  AiocrSoros  (also  OeooSoTos), 
UduStoq,  Sk.  Dyaus,  divya,  deva,  Lat.  Jupiter,  Diovis, 

1  Selected  Essays,  i,  p.  215,  note  B. 


v]  WORDS    OF    A    MORE    ANCIENT    STRATUM.  39 1 

Jovis,  Diana,  deus,  Ir.  dia,  Lit.  deva,  O.N.  tivar. 
Why  S  should  have  become  0  I  honestly  confess  that 
I  cannot  explain,  unless  we  suppose  that  the  regular 
representatives  of  deva  in  Greek,  viz.  Seo?  or  Soto?, 
would  have  been  undistinguishable  from  Se'09,  fear, 
and  Soiog,  double  *.  The  Greek  Oeos,  if  not  derived 
from  the  root  div,  has  found  no  other  root  as  yet  from 
which  it  could  have  been  derived,  so  as  to  account 
for  its  meaning,  as  well  as  its  form.  Wackernagel 
takes  it  as  originally  6eF6s  which  Bury  traces  back 
to  the  root  hu,  to  sacrifice,  i.e.  to  pour  out 
libations  (xew>  xVT°9)-  Brugmann  refers  it  to  the 
same  class  as  ghora,  terrible.  Schmidt  prefers 
OFeaos,  and  traces  it  back  to  Lit.  dv£sti,  to  breathe, 
dvase,  spirit  (K.  Z.,  xxxii,  p.  342).  None  of  these 
meanings  carries  conviction,  and  it  seems  almost  in- 
evitable to  treat  deos  as  an  ancient  mythological  word, 
and  as  exceptional  on  account  of  its  very  antiquity. 
In  other  languages  also,  as  I  pointed  out  on  a  former 
occasion,  the  words  for  God  show  certain  irregular!- 
ties,  and  the  extraordinary  pronunciations  of  God, 
which  may  be  heard  from  the  pulpits  of  churches 
and  chapels  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales,  nay 
in  America  also,  give  us  an  idea  of  what  may  have 
happened  in  ancient  times.  I  was  pleased  to  find 
that  Mr.  Edwin  Fay,  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Philology,  has  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion,  and 
goes  so  far  as  to  see  in  the  rough  breathing  of  cer- 
tain words  in  Greek  what  he  calls  a  '  reverential 
pronunciation.' 

1  A  similar  cause  prevented  the  change  of  efioiSr)  into  oSco&j,  see 
Schmidt  in  K.  Z.,  xxxii,  p.  332,  and  of  dyKvXos  into  dyKvXos,  ibid. 
P-  376. 


392  WORDS    WITH    DIFFERENT    ETYMOLOGIES.       [chap. 

Words  with  different  Etymologies. 
In  spite  of  the  great  advance  which  has  undoubt- 
edly been  made  in  the  knowledge  of  phonetic  laws, 
we  often  find  three  or  four  etymologies  of  the  same 
word  advocated  by  the  most  competent  scholars. 
They  cannot  possibly  be  all  right,  and  here  at  all 
events  a  consideration  of  the  meaning  may  claim 
a  certain  attention. 

Prapides. 

The  Greek  tt pan  [$€<;,  for  instance,  has  long  been 
a  crux  to  Greek  and  comparative  etymologists. 
Four  etymologies  have  lately  been  worked  out  by 
four  great  authorities  in  phonetic  science,  but  not 
one  of  them  is  really  convincing. 

M.  L.  Havet  in  the  Memoires  de  la  Societe  des 
Linguistes,  vi,  18,  proposed  to  connect  TrpaTriSes  with 
the  Sanskrit  kWp,  the  Latin  corpus.  Supposing 
that  the  phonetic  difficulties  could  all  be  removed, 
could  we  bring  ourselves  to  believe  that  so  charac- 
teristic a  part  of  the  body  as  the  midriff  or  diaphragm, 
the  seat  of  laughter  and  anger,  could  ever  have  been 
called  simply  the  body  ?  That  another  name  of  the 
7r/)a7u'Se5,  scil.  (f>peves,  should  have  been  used  for  mind 
is  intelligible  enough,  because  so  many  affections  of 
the  mind  seemed  to  affect  the  diaphragm  (<ppeve<$), 
but  this  special  function  of  the  diaphragm  would 
have  been  the  very  reason  why  it  could  not  have 
been  called  by  a  name  having  the  general  meaning 
of  body. 

Prof.  Osthoff  worked  out  a  much  more  elaborate 
etymology.  Taking  his  stand  on  the  German  name 
of  the  diaphragm,  Zwerchfell,  i.e.  the  skin  across,  he 
tried  to  bring  about  a  phonetic  reconciliation  between 


v]  PRAPIDES.  393 

Zwerch  and  rrpaTri^.  Zwerch,  athwart,  he  traces 
back  to  an  Lido-Germanic  tuerqo.  The  syllable  tvW 
or  tver  he  traces  in  the  Sk.  Aatvar,  and  this  appears 
as  rerpa  in  rerpaKis.  In  rpdirela,  rpa  is  supposed  to 
represent  an  original  qrFep,  which  dwindles  down 
to  rFep  and  to  rp.  Hence,  if  rFep  can  become  rpa, 
he  argues,  why  not  rFepqo  :  rpaqo  ?  This  TpaKwo 
might  be  assimilated  to  /cpaxwo,  and  this,  if  labialised, 
would  become  Trpano.  From  Trpairo  a  derivative 
TTpaTTLs,  7r/3a7rt8o9  would  be  formed,  and  thus  all 
would  be  right.     (Etymologica,  p.  761). 

Supposing  that  mechanically  all  these  changes 
were  right,  though  a  change  from  tw  to  kw  and  p  is 
difficult  to  support  by  analogies,  one  does  not  see 
why  they  should  have  taken  place  in  this  one  word 
irpcnriSes,  while  /c/mKi'Se?,  or  even  rpartSe?  would  have 
answered  equally  well.  Anyhow  it  would  not  be 
difficult  to  propose  other  etymologies  which  would 
not  require  the  admission  of  such  extremely  compli- 
cated changes  as  those  which  led  Osthoff  from 
77/>a7rt8e5  to  Zwerch. 

Hence  Professor  Bechtel  proposed,  as  a  third 
etymology,  to  connect  777)0,77- i'Se<?  with  Sk.  parsu, 
rib  (Kl.  Aufs.  zur  Grammat.  der  indogerm. 
Sprachen,  1,  3  ;  Gott.  Nachr.  1888,  p.  401).  Here 
the  phonetic  difficulties  would  no  doubt  be  less, 
though  sv  ought  to  become  7T7t  rather  than  tt.  The 
substantial  difficulty,  however,  would  still  remain, 
that  par.su  means  rib  and  not  diaphragm,  and  that 
we  do  not  even  know  why  the  rib  itself  should  have 
been  called  parsu. 

Professor  Windisch  suggested  a  fourth  derivation. 
Tracing  back  npan  to  perg,  he  identified  pero^  with 
Gothic  fairhvus,  world,  but  having  in  other  cognate 


394  PRAPIDES.  [chap. 

languages  the  meaning  of  soul,  mind,  and  life.  Here 
the  phonetic  difficulties  have  been  much  diminished, 
but  we  ask  again  why  did  fairhvus  mean  world,  soul, 
and  life,  and  why  should  the  diaphragm  have  been 
called  soul  or  life  ?  We  can  understand  that  a  word 
for  diaphragm  (<f>peve<;)  should  in  time  assume  the 
meaning  of  life  or  mind,  but  hardly  vice  versa,  that 
a  word  meaning  mind  or  life,  should  become  the 
name  of  the  diaphragm. 

I  give  this  one  instance  in  order  to  show  that  these 
four  etymologies  cannot  possibly  be  all  right,  and  that 
our  choice  must  very  much  depend  on  the  degree  of 
conviction  which  the  successful  explanation  of  the 
meaning  of  a  word  conveys  to  our  mind. 

Analogy  and  its  Limits. 

I  am  quite  willing  to  admit  that  nothing  would 
justify  us  in  admitting  6  in  Greek  as  the  regular 
representative  of  d  in  Sanskrit  in  any  word  except 
6e6s,  as  little  as  I  should  admit  the  transition  of  Sk. 
sva  in  the  middle  of  a  word  into  tttt,  in  any  word 
but  asva  and  Itttto^;,  to  say  nothing  about  the  illegiti- 
mate spiritus  asper  of  iWos.  Nor  should  I  appeal 
to  the  transition  of  S  into  6  on  Greek  soil  in  the  late 
Boeotic  forms  ou#ei?  and  /iiyfleis  for  ouSei's  and  /x-^Sei?. 
I  accept  #eo<?  =  cleus  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  phonetic 
rules,  and  I  do  so  chiefly  because  it  belongs  to  an 
ancient  and  almost  mythological  cluster  of  words, 
just  as  I  except  eySSo^to?  and  oyhoos  from  the  legiti- 
mate influence  of  phonetic  rules,  because  they  belong 
to  a  very  ancient  series  of  words.  There  are  still  many 
things  which  we  have  to  accept  without  being  able 
to  account  for  them.  We  have  to  accept  6<£#aA/xo?, 
though  we  cannot  account  for  the  aspiration  in  <j>0 ; 


v]  ANALOGY    AND    ITS    LIMITS.  395 

we  have  to  accept  aarv  for  vastu,  though  we  expect 
ocrrv.  (Saussure,  Systeme,  p.  178.)  No  excuse  can 
be  shown  for  /xeya?  =  mahan,  for  iya>  =  aham,  nor  for 
efi&ojjLos  instead  of  eWo/Ao?,  septimus,  except  an 
appeal  to  Ur-indogermanisch  in  which,  instead  of 
septeme,  there  may  have  existed  a  form  *sabdma  or 
*saptva.  I  say  there  may,  and  yet  I  consider  this 
may  as  quite  strong  enough  to  enable  us  to  say 
that  we  cannot  possibly  separate  e/3So[xo<;  and  6y$oos 
from  k-rrra.  and  oktco.  Brugmann  may  be  right  (V.  G. 
i,  469,  3)  in  conjecturing  that  in  Ur-indogermanisch 
there  existed  the  form  sepdmo  or  sebdmo,  which 
would  account  for  the  Old  Slavonic  sedmu.  But 
this  leaves  the  question  of  the  legitimacy  of  such 
a  change,  it  leaves  the  reason  why,  as  unexplained  as 
the  change  of  8  into  6  in  6eo<g.  And  if  the  change 
of  oktoos  into  oySoos  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  mere 
analogy,  all  one  can  say  is  that  it  may  be  so,  but 
that  it  would  form  a  very  extreme  case  and  a  most 
dangerous  precedent.  I  have  never  been  able  to 
see  how  e/SSojuos  instead  of  enTOfios  could  change 
oktoos  into  oyhoos.  If  the  Greek  form  were  oy&onos 
the  irregular  form  might  possibly  be  ascribed  to 
a  desire  for  analogy,  but  how  that  desire  should 
have  been  satisfied  by  the  change  of  a  guttural 
tenuis  into  a  guttural  media,  in  analogy  with  the 
change  of  a  labial  tenuis  into  a  labial  media,  is 
not  so  easy  to  explain.  And  if  seven  reacted  on 
eight,  why  should  it  not  have  reacted  on  six  or 
five  ?  Analogy  explains  many  things,  but  it  must 
not  be  allowed  to  explain  too  many  \     I  ask  any 

1  Even  the   well-known  ingenuity  of  Ascoli   cannot   quite 
remove  the   difficulties  of  efidofxos  and  oy8oos.      He  postulates 


396  ANALOGY    AND    ITS    LIMITS.  [chap. 

unprejudiced  scholar,  when  we  read  in  the  Odyssey 
Oeiov  'Ohvarjos,  and  Siov  'OSvcrcrfjoq,  can  we  derive 
Sto<?  from  the  root  div,  and  #eto5  from  quite  another 
root,  whatever  it  may  have  been  ? 

Loss  of  Letters. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  doubt  that  the  Sk. 
a.s'ru,  tear,  is  a  distant  relation  of  SaKpv,  tear,  but  I 
have  never  denied  that  the  loss  of  the  initial  d  is 
without  parallel,  and  against  all  phonetic  rules.  So 
it  is,  and  yet  the  facts  remain  as  they  are  ;  only  in 
order  to  be  historically  correct  we  ought  to  say  that 
in  Proto-Aryan  (Ur-mclogermanisch)  there  must 
have  been  by  the  side  of  the  root  das,  to  bite, 
a  parallel  root  as,  to  be  sharp,  to  cut,  as  in  acuo, 
just  as  there  was  a  root  dab  by  the  side  of  a  root  ah. 
Whichever  of  these  two  roots  came  first,  the  idea  to 
derive  from  them  a  name  for  the  sharp  or  biting 
drops  issuing  from  our  eyes,  was  one  and  the  same  ', 
so  that  we  are  right  in  treating  the  two  words  in 
Greek  and  Sanskrit,  to  say  nothing  of  Latin  and 
German,  as  the  results  of  one  and  the  same  poetic 

antecedent  forms  such  as  septvo  and  oktvo  which  in  Latin 
would  appear  as  septuo  and  octuo,  in  Greek  as  e(38fo  and  oydfo. 
He  claims  the  same  power  which  belongs  to  nasals  and  sonant 
fricatives,  the  power  of  changing  a  tenuis  into  a  media,  as  in 
fiely/xa  (deUvvfu),  86ynu  (ftoKtoo),  or  vfipis  (ii7r/p),  for  the  f,  which  would 
change  enrfo  into  e/38o,  and  oxTfo  into  oySo.  There  exists,  how- 
ever, no  case  in  which  f  has  actually  produced  such  a  change  ; 
even  iwfos  remains  l-rnros.  The  former  existence  of  a  f  or  v  in 
Latin  has  been  discovered  by  Ascoli  in  septua-ginta,  in  septu- 
ennis,  and  in  the  vulgar  forms  octuaginta  and  octuagies.  {See 
La  Genesi  dell'  esponente  Greco  t<ito,  p.  19  seq.) 

1  A  similar  metaphor  may  explain  the  connection  between 
dSvvr]  and  eSvva,  K.  Z.,  xxxii,  p.  346. 


v]  LOSS    OF    LETTERS.  397 

act  on  the  part  of  the  as  yet  undivided  Aryas.  If 
some  scholars  prefer  to  admit  two  creative  acts 
instead  of  one,  I  must  say,  as  in  the  case  of  #ed<?, 
they  seem  to  me  to  make  the  chapter  of  accidents 
unnecessarily  large,  and  they  gain  nothing  in  the 
end. 

Freedom  in  analysing  Mythological  Names. 

These  preliminary  remarks  were  necessary,  in  order 
to  explain  more  fully  why  I  do  not  hesitate  to  claim 
in  the  case  of  ancient  mythological  names  something 
of  that  freedom  which,  under  some  name  or  other, 
we  have  to  grant  even  in  the  case  of  ordinary 
appellative  nouns.  My  reason  for  putting  in  this 
claim  is  by  no  means  a  wish  for  unlimited  phonetic 
licence,  but  simply  a  conviction  that,  as  historians  of 
language,  we  must  learn  to  accept  facts,  even  when 
they  run  counter  to  our  own  favourite  theories. 

Local  Influence. 

There  are  some  other  considerations  which  may 
help  us  to  clinch  this  argument.  Mythology  and 
folklore  are  always  in  their  origin  local.  Hence, 
when  in  time  certain  mythological  names  become 
more  widely  accepted,  they  often  retain  something 
of  their  first  dialectical  character.  It  is  the  same 
even  now,  particularly  with  proper  names.  If  a  man 
of  the  name  of  Smid  becomes  famous  in  the  North  of 
Germany  where  Low-German  is  spoken,  no  one  in 
the  South  of  Germany  would  change  his  name 
to  Schmidt,  nor  should  we  in  England  call  him 
Smith.  Beethoven  is  not  changed  to  Beethof,  he 
remains  Beethoven  all  over  Germany,  aye  all  over 
the  world,  nor  does  any  one  in  England  speak  of 


39&  LOCAL    INFLUENCE.  [chap. 

Wagner  as  Waggoner.  I  remember  the  late 
Professor  Welcker  being  lectured  like  a  schoolboy 
for  having  suggested  a  relationship  between  Aesopus 
and  Aethiops.  How,  he  was  asked,  could  Greek  th, 
Sk.  dh,  become  s  in  Greek  %  Still  Welcker's  con- 
jecture was  by  no  means  the  conjecture  of  a  school- 
boy. The  Homeric  name  Aithiops  is  no  doubt 
connected  with  aWa),  to  burn,  Sk.  idh,  and  may  have 
been  originally  intended  for  people  with  burnt  or 
dark  faces  1,  while  aWoxjj,  as  applied  to  metal  and 
wine,  may  be  translated  by  fiery  or  ruddy.  It  was 
supposed  by  many  scholars,  long  before  Welcker, 
that  the  twofold  Aithiopians,  mentioned  by  Homer, 
were  meant  for  the  inhabitants  of  India,  and  know- 
ing that  India  was  the  richest  source  of  fables  which 
in  later  times  were  spread  over  the  whole  world, 
Welcker  saw  how  appropriate  such  a  name  as 
Aithopos  would  have  been  for  the  fabulous  author 
of  Greek  fables.  No  doubt  every  schoolboy  ought 
to  know,  as  we  are  told,  that  th  in  Greek  is  totally 
different  from  s,  but  we  have  only  to  recollect  that 
the  name  Aesopos  may  have  been  formed  in  the 
Aeolic  or  Doric  dialects,  and  in  that  case  the  sub- 
stitution of  s  for  th  would  become  perfectly  regular, 
nor  would  the  retention  of  that  dialectic  form  by 
his  admirers  all  over  Greece  conflict  with  what  we 
know  in  the  case  of  other  proper  names.  The  name 
of  Hesiodos,  originally  Esiodos,  was  the  Boeotian 
name  by  which  the  poet  became  famous,  and  which 
he  retained  throughout,  though  in  his  birthplace, 
Kyme,  his  name  is  said  to  have  been  Aisiodos. 
(Fick  and  Bechtel,  Personennamen,  p.  4.) 

1  Cf.  brant  in  brant-fox. 


v]  LOCAL    INFLUENCE.  399 

What  is  legitimate  in  the  case  of  proper  names,  is 
equally,  nay  more  legitimate,  in  the  case  of  the 
oldest  of  proper  names,  the  names  of  gods  and  half- 
divine  heroes. 


Dialectic  Varieties  of  Mythological  Names. 

But  there  is  still  stronger  evidence  to  show  that 
these  mythological  names  are  not  subject  to  the 
same  stringent  phonetic  rules  as  ordinary  words. 
We  find  that  several  of  these  gods  and  heroes  have 
two  or  three  different  names  which  it  would  be  quite 
impossible  to  explain  by  the  ordinary  phonetic  rules 
of  Greek,  but  which  have  to  be  accepted  as  Pan- 
Aryan  varieties.  In  the  case  of  UocretScov,  for 
instance,  we  know  that  he  was  also  called  Horn. 
UocreiSacov,  Ark.  Hoo-oiSdv,  Lak.  UoolSdp,  Boeot. 
IToreiSawv,  and  ITotoiScuy/>9  1,  also  HocreLSrjs,  LTocrtS^?, 
and  IToTtSas  2.  Now  suppose  that  some  etymology 
or  other  had  been  satisfactorily  established  for 
Poseidon,  and  there  is  at  least  a  plausible  form 
77-/509  +  oiSaw,  to  swell  toward,  how  could  we  exriect 
the  same  etymology  to  account  for  Potidas  ?  And 
yet  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  all  these  names  are 
dialectic  varieties  of  one  and  the  same  typical  form. 
They  may  with  some  effort  be  accounted  for  by 
means  of  the  phonetic  laws  of  each  special  Greek 
dialect,  but  they  could  not  be  brought  into  harmony 
with  the  phonetic  laws  that  determine  the  corre- 
spondence of  Sanskrit  and  Greek   consonants    and 


1  Brugmann,  V.  G.,  i,  490,  2  ;  cf.  Curtius,  p.  245,  who  quotes 
Fick,  i3,  507,  from  eido,  to  swell  ;  cf.  Prellwitz,  Diet.,  s.  v. 

2  Gerhard,  Gr.  Myth,  231,1. 


400  VARIETIES    OF    MYTHOLOGICAL    NAMES.        [chap. 

vowels.  If  the  first  element  corresponds  to  the  Sk. 
preposition  prati,  the  Greek  npoTt,  this  Trport  would 
have  suffered  changes  which  have  nothing  parallel 
to  them  in  ordinary  Greek.  According  to  Baunack 
we  should  have  to  admit  nine  varieties  in  Greek, 
irpori,  nopTL,  irepTi,  irpos,  nori,  ttot,  tto,  7705,  and  iroi 
This  is  a  large  allowance,  and  the  question  would 
still  have  to  be  left  open,  whether  we  have  to  admit 
two  parallel  forms  from  the  beginning,  or  take  the 
forms  without  p  as  modifications  of  the  forms  with  p. 
The  Persian  forms  patiy  and  paiti  favour  the  former 
view,  but  we  are  driven  again  to  take  refuge  in 
Ur-indogermanisch  in  order  to  give  phonetic  reasons 
for  what  in  each  special  language  would  be  simply 
impossible. 

Other  divine  names  in    Greek  which    offer   per- 
plexing,  though   probably   dialectic,    varieties    are  : 

\0rjvr],  Adr\vair\,  ' 'A6r)va,  ' '  Addva,  *A6ava  :  Tplrco, 
TplraivLS,    Tpiraia,    TpiToyeveia,   Tpiro/xi^is  :      Ep/i^?, 

Epjieias,  Ep/xao?  :  Ecrrta,  'Icttlt]  :  'AttoXXojv,  'AtteX- 
Xojp,  ATreiko)v,  AttXovv.  Aprjs  and  "Apevs:  'A^poSirr), 
' Atypoyiveia  and  Acf)pa>  :  ArjjjLyJTrjp  and  A^w  :  Ba/r^o?, 
'iaK^os:  'AlSt^?,  C1S77S,  vAig:  Aio^ucro?,  Atw^vcro?.  In 
some  cases  these  varieties  can  be  accounted  for  by 
general  phonetic  rules ;  in  others,  however,  even 
when  the  difference  is  only  one  between  a  long  and 
a  short  vowel,  they  would  upset  any  etymology, 
however  carefully  elaborated.  And  what  applies  to 
Greek  mythological  names  applies  likewise  to  the 
names  of  ancient  or  modern  German  mythology.  If 
at  the  present  moment,  or  at  all  events  during  the 
present  century,  a  scholar  were  to  collect  the  legends 
about  the  goddess  Holda  or  Frau  Holda,  he  would 
hear  her  name  pronounced  as  Frau  Holle,  Frau  Wolle, 


vj  VARIETIES    OF    MYTHOLOGICAL    NAMES.  40I 

or  Frau  Eolle,  without  any  respect  for  phonetic 
rules  ;  just  as  even  now  we  can  hear  St.  Bartholomew 
pronounced  Bartlemy,  Barklemy,  or  Bardlemy1. 

All  this  will  help  us  to  understand  why  phonetic 
rules  which  may  admit  of  no  exception  as  between 
Sanskrit  and  Greek,  must  necessarily  be  modified 
so  as  to  include  the  changes  which  are  recognised  in 
the  local  dialects  of  every  language. 

Aspirates,  Sonant  and  Surd. 

Nothing,  for  instance,  can  be  more  certain  than 
that,  as  a  rule,  a  Sanskrit  or  a  Proto- Aryan  media 
ought  not  in  Greek  to  appear  as  a  tenuis.  But  it  is 
equally  certain  that  if  an  Aryan  word  has  once 
assumed  its  Greek  garb,  it  is  liable  to  any  amount 
of  dialectical  change.  In  Greek  itself  we  find  ever 
so  many  instances  of  a  tenuis  instead  of  a  media, 
not  only  in  the  middle,  but  also  at  the  beginning  of 
a  word.  We  have  not  only  "Kpre^ir  by  the  side  of 
"A/ore/xiS,  ©e/xtr  by  the  side  of  ®e/xiS,  or  aprjya)  by  the 
side  of  dpKeo),  Ttjyavov  by  the  side  of  rrJKO),  Kdvcofios 
for  KdVco7ro5,  but  we  find  Sct7rt?  instead  of  T<x7ri9  or 
TOLTrr]<;,  yva/xi//cu  for  kW/xi/zcu,  yvafjxxWov  for  Kvefyak- 
\ov,  fiaTelv  for  Trareiv,  /3iKpo<?  for  ttik/oos.  Even 
with  aspirated  tenuis  we  find  dialectically  media 
for  tenuis  aspirata,  as  in  B1A177-77-0S  for  <E>i\i7r7ro9, 
BepevUr)  for  QepeviKT). 

Such  changes,  therefore,  though  exceptional  or 
dialectic  only,  cannot  be  deprecated  on  principle, 
if  they  occur  in  mythological  names. 

No  one  has  ever  doubted  that   the   Greek   6  is 


1  Dickens,  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  p.  558. 
VOL.  I.  D  d 


432  ASPIRATES,   SONANT    AND    SURD.  [chap. 

an  aspirated  tenuis  and  not  an  aspirated  media,  and 
therefore  phonetically  quite  distinct  from  Sk.  dh. 
Nevertheless  Greek  6  corresponds  regularly  to  Sk. 
aspirated  media  dh,  which  Greek  does  no  longer 
possess,  such  as  in  dvfxos  =  Sk.  dhuma,  &c.  This 
Greek  0  is  reduplicated  with  t,  nTfy/u,  while  dh  in 
Sanskrit  is  reduplicated  with  d,  da-dhami.  Grass- 
mann, however,  in  his  essay  published  in  1863,  showed 
that  there  are  roots  which  require  the  admission  of 
an  aspirate  both  as  initial  and  as  final,  such  as 
DHIGH,  in  Sk.  DIH ;  and  that  in  Greek,  which  has 
no  sonant  aspirates,  this  root  would  appear  as  either 
tlx  or  Giy,  and  not  as  St^  or  dhiy. 

Why  this  should  have  been  so,  why  what  is 
media  aspirata  in  Sanskrit,  should,  when  losing  its 
aspiration,  be  represented  in  Greek  by  a  tenuis,  is 
difficult  to  explain  with  certainty.  It  may  have 
been  due  either  to  the  reaction  of  the  final  aspirate, 
which  in  Greek  could  be  tenuis  only,  or  to  the  fact 
that  the  initial  aspirate  was  at  first  tenuis  aspirata, 
and  therefore  its  locum  tenens  a  tenuis  also. 

There  may  have  been,  or,  as  some  people  might 
say,  there  must  have  been  an  intermediate  stage  in 
which  the  initial  media  had  not  yet  become  a  tenuis, 
that  is  to  say  the  root  might  have  been  Six  before 
it  became  tlx,  though  of  this  there  is  no  trace  in 
the  actual  language.  We  find  derivatives  such  as 
rolxos  and  Oiyydvco,  but  never  any  derivatives 
from  hix  *• 

This  Otyyava),  aor.  ediyov  and  Oiyeiv,  is  quite 
correct  phonetically,  yet  such  was  formerly  the 
respect    shown    for    the    meaning    of    words    that 

1  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  269. 


v]  ASPIRATES,   SONANT    AND    SURD.  403 

Grassmann  himself  actually  hesitated *  to  trace 
Ouyeiv  back  to  the  root  DHIGH,  simply  on  account 
of  the  difference  of  meaning.  Yet  the  original  sense 
of  digh,  to  knead,  might  well,  as  in  mm,  have  been 
taken  in  the  more  general  sense  of  handling,  touch- 
ing, considering.  The  same  concessions,  however, 
should  sometimes  be  made  by  semasiologists  which 
have  so  often  to  be  made  by  the  phonologists. 

Mythological  Names  Prehistoric. 

That  the  Greek  language  passed  through  a  period 
of  uncertainty  as  to  the  best  way  of  representing 
the  sound  which  in  Sanskrit  appears  as  media 
aspirata,  gh,  dh,  bh,  we  know  from  the  numerous 
instances  in  which  in  certain  roots  media  and  tenuis 
vary2.  The  very  fact  that  the  final  aspirate  of  roots 
like  DHIGH  is  represented  by  media  as  in  diyeiv, 
not  by  tenuis  (6lk),  shows  that  its  medial  character 
continued  to  be  felt.  If  then  the  medial  sound, 
peculiar  to  the  period  of  transition,  was  regularly 
preserved  in  the  final  of  this  class  of  roots,  why 
should  it  not  formerly  3  have  been  preserved  in  the 
initial  also  ? 

Daphne. 

If  dih  leads  to  toI-)(o<;,  why  should  not  Daphne 
stand  for  Taphne,  a  form  phonetically  more  correct, 

1  K.  Z.,  xii,  p.  125. 

2  On  aTOfifpoi  and  a-repPa,  &c,  see  Science  of  Language,  ii, 
p.  270. 

3  Grassmann  speaks  of  the  transition  of  the  initial  media  into 
a  tenuis  aspirata  as  a  chronological  event,  K.  Z.,  xii,  p.  117:  '  Da 
die  Aspirate  im  Sanskrit  weich,  im  Griechischen,  wenigstens 
von  einem  gewissen  Zeitpunkte  an,  hart  war.' 

D  d  2 


404  DAPHNE.  [CHAP. 

though  extinct  in  classical  Greek?     Whenever  we 
try   to    discover   the    etymology   and   the    original 
intention  of  a  mythological  name,  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  first  we  have  to  do  is  to  ascertain  the  class 
of  physical  phenomena  to  which  certain  names  point. 
In  the  case  of  Daphne,  I  think  I  have  proved  that 
the  story  of  her  fleeing  before  Phoibos  (the  brilliant 
sun)  and  vanishing  in  his  embraces,  can  be  matched 
by  other  cognate  stories,  all  pointing  to  the  Dawn 
as  vanishing  as  soon  as  the   brilliant    rays   of  the 
rising  sun  touch  her.     We  have  therefore  a  perfect 
right  to  expect  in  Daphne  a   name   of  the  Dawn. 
Then,  and  then  only,  comes  the  question,  how  the 
Dawn  could  be  called  by  such  a  name  as  Daphne  ? 
That  such  a  name  had  an  etymology,  that  it  was 
formed  with  a  purpose  no  true  scholar  would  deny. 
Let  therefore  any  one  produce  a  better  etymology 
than  that  which  I  suggested  many  years  ago,  from 
DAH  {Bay,  Tax  :   Ool/3,  ra(f> :   Sacft),  and  my  own  will, 
of  course,  have  to  be  surrendered.     But  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  my  etymology  explains  not  only 
Daphne    as    a   name    of    the    Dawn,    but    likewise 
daphne  as  a  name  of  the  laurel-tree  into  which  she 
was  fabled  to  have  been  changed  \     I  have  always 
been   ready  to   give    up    any  etymology,   provided 
always  that  it  could  be  replaced  by  a  better  one  ; 
but  when  I  consider  the  fluctuating  state  of  tenuis 
aspirata  and  media  in  Greek  (Brugmann,  Grundriss, 
par.  469,  8),  when   I  see  actual  dialectic  changes 
such  as  Sct7ri9  for  rd-n-qs  in  the  language  of  Aristo- 
phanes   and    Xenophon,    I    maintain    that    until    a 
better  etymology,  better  not  only  phonetically  but 


1  See  Science  of  Language,  ii,  p.  621. 


v]  DAPHNE.  405 

materially  also,  can  be  produced,  my  own  still  holds 
the  field. 

It  is  possible  to  account  for  the  initial  media  in 
$d<f)i>7]  instead  of  tol^vt]  even  on  more  general  grounds. 
What  Grassmann  has  shown  (K.  Z.,  xii,  p.  no)  is 
that  when  roots  having  originally  an  initial  and  final 
aspirate,  appear  in  Greek,  the  initial,  deprived  of 
its  aspiration,  appears  as  tenuis,  the  final  as  aspirate. 
But  if  a  word  was  formed  before  the  Aryan  lan- 
guages separated,  such  a  word  would  hardly  have 
been  liable  to  a  rule  which  is  exclusively  Greek. 
Now  most  mythological  names  belong  to  what  may 
be  called  a  prehistoric  or  pre-ethnic  stratum  of 
Aryan  speech,  and  a  name  such  as  Dahana  would 
appear  as  Daphana  or  Daphna,  just  as  regularly  as 
garbha  appears  as  fipefos,  and  as  SeX^u?  also  as 
Se\cf)6s  in  a-$e\<j)6$.  The  root  of  garbha  is  gribh 
or  gn'h  (according  to  Grassmann,  ghrabh).  In  a 
similar  way  we  have  /3v#/ao?  by  the  side  of  nvO/x-qp, 
fiaTTTO)  by  the  side  of  gahate,  and  fiadvs,  fiados, 
/3ev0os,  whether  we  connect  them  with  gah  (ghah), 
or,  according  to  Fick,  with  bhadh ;  we  have  So\t^o<? 
by  the  side  of  dirgha  or  *daregha,  &c. 

Athene. 

From  the  same  root  DAH,  or  rather  from  its 
twin  form  AH,  as  seen  in  ahan,  day,  I  ventured 
many  years  ago  to  derive  the  name  of  Athene,  the 
day -goddess,  the  goddess  of  light  and  wisdom. 
Many  objections  were  raised,  and  I  have  tried  to 
answer  them  all  in  my  Science  of  Language,  ii, 
p.  621  seq.  As  in  this  case,  however,  another  and 
a  very  plausible  etymology  had  been  proposed, 
namely  by  Professor  Benfey,  I  felt  bound  to  show 


406  ATHENE.  [CHAP. 

why  his  derivation  was  phonetically,  as  well  as 
materially,  objectionable 1.  Whenever  there  is  a 
choice  between  two  etymologies,  it  becomes  neces- 
sary that  we  should  show  the  grounds  on  which 
either  the  one  or  the  other  must  be  rejected. 

It  was  not  a  new  objection  that  has  lately  been 
raised,  namely  that  if  Ahana  is  connected  with 
ahan,  day,  its  h  requires  ^  in  Greek,  and  not  6. 
But  I  thought  I  had  fully  shown  on  former  occa- 
sions that  with  regard  to  the  Sanskrit  aspirated 
media  (i.  e.  Greek  aspirated  tenuis),  there  was  a 
time  of  which  the  clearest  traces  are  left  in 
Sanskrit,  when  the  h  was  as  yet  undetermined 
locally,  and  found  expression  freely  either  as  gh, 
or  dh,  or  bh.  Thus  besides  nah,  we  find  nabh 
(nabhi)  and  nadh  (naddha).  Besides  grah,  we  find 
grabh  and  gradh  (gWdhra).  Besides  gah  (gac?Aa, 
deep)  we  find  gabh  (gabhira,  deep)  and  gadh  (gadha, 
ford).  In  cases  like  these  we  ask  no  longer  whether 
the  final  h  or  gh  was  palatal  or  velar,  or  labial  or 
dental,  but  we  take  such  a  root  as  gadh  as  an  in- 
dependent type,  and  derive  from  it  fiaOvs,  deep, 
while  we  derive  fiaTTTa)  from  gabh  (gabh). 

If  we  admit  then  for  ah,  as  for  other  roots  ending 
in  h,  parallel  forms  ending  in  gh,  dh,  or  bh,  we  should 
have,  by  the  side  of  ah  a  root  adh,  like  nadh,  by 
the  side  of  nah.  Of  this  root  adh,  Athene  would 
be  the  perfectly  legitimate  offspring. 

But,  it  may  be  fairly  asked,  is  there  any  trace 
of  such  a  root  as  adh,  and  have  we  any  right 
to  postulate  in  the  root  ah  the  same  variety  of 
final  letters  which  we  find  in  grah,  nah,  and  gah, 

1  Natural  Religion,  pp.  442-445. 


v]  ATHENE.  407 

all  roots  ending  in  h  ?  I  admit  the  weight  of  this 
objection,  but  I  believe  that  one  trace  at  least, 
however  faint,  has  been  preserved  of  the  root  with 
a  dental  aspirate  as  final.  We  know  that  to  speak 
was  by  the  early  Aryas  expressed  by  to  shine,  to 
light  up,  as  in  bhami,  I  shine,  <$>iqpi,  I  speak.  We 
are  therefore  justified  in  assigning  to  ah  the  original 
meaning  of  shining,  and  in  explaining  by  it  the 
meaning  of  ahan,  day,  and  of  the  old  perfect  present 
aha,  I  speak '.  Now,  why  is  the  second  person 
singular  of  the  perfect  aha,  attha  ?  If  we  consult 
Pamni,  he  explains  it  by  a  purely  mechanical 
process.  In  III,  4,  84,  he  shows  that  ah  is  sub- 
stituted for  bru;  in VIII,  2,  35,  that  th  is  substituted 
for  h  in  aha.  Therefore  the  second  person  singular^ 
as  it  does  not  take  ik,  would  become  aththa,  and 
this,  according  to  the  general  rule  about  aspirates 
becomes  attha.  All  this  is  quite  right  mechanically, 
but  historically  it  teaches  us  a  far  more  important 
lesson,  namely,  that  the  final  h  of  ah  in  aha,  had 
once  been  a  dental  element,  and  might  have  been 
represented  by  th  or  dh ;  only  that  if  by  dh,  then 
according  to  Pacini's  rules  (M.  M.,  Sansk.  Gr., 
par.  117),  the  second  person  singular  would  have 
become  addha,  and  not  attha.  Here,  then,  in  an 
irregular  and  therefore  ancient  verb,  we  find  the 
root  ath  or  adh,  the  existence  of  which  was  doubted, 
and  it  was  this  very  root  which  in  probably  still 
more  ancient  times  gave  rise  to  the  name  of  a 
goddess  both  of  light  and  speech.  Her  name  in 
Greek  retained  the  dental  element  and  remained 
Athene,  while  in  Sanskrit  the  same  prototype  became 

1  Cf.  Brugmann,  Griech.  Etymologien,  p.  49- 


408  ATHENE.  [CHAP. 

Ahana,  as  parallel  to  aha.  James  Darmesteter,  no 
mean  authority  on  such  subjects,  goes  even  further, 
and  connects  Athene  with  ath  in  ath-ar,  fire,  the 
Zend  atar,  fire,  whence  Atharvan,  the  fire-priest. 
The  root  would  throughout  be  the  same  ah  or  ath, 
to  shine,  to  burn ;  from  it  ahan,  day,  Ahana,  day  or 
morning  goddess,  atar  (cf.  ahar),  fire  1. 

I  know,  of  course,  that  scholars  who  are  deter- 
mined to  deny  any  relationship  between  Sanskrit 
and  classical  mythology,  will  call  this  very  far- 
fetched. And  far-fetched,  no  doubt,  it  is,  and  far- 
fetched it  ought  to  be.  I  believe  that  in  attha,  and 
perhaps  in  athar  and  athar-van,  we  have  the  only 
tangible  proof  of  the  final  th  or  dh  in  the  root  ah. 
It  might  have  vanished  with  the  rest.  But  its 
unique  character  makes  this  form  attha  all  the 
more  precious.  I  have  tried  to  explain  again  and 
again  why  the  etymology  of  mythological  names 
has  to  go  back  very  far  for  its  evidence,  and  has  to 
pierce  into  a  stratum  of  what  may  be  called  pre- 
historic Aryan  speech.  Our  phonetic  and  gram- 
matical laws  are  derived  from  observing  each  of  the 
Aryan  languages,  as  we  know  it  historically,  and  at 
a  much  later  time.  But  these  historical  layers  of 
speech  presuppose  layers  below  layers,  and  we  cannot 
maintain  a  priori  that  the  same  laws  prevailed  in 
them  which  prevailed  in  later  times.  This  is  fully 
admitted  with  regard  to  the  formation  of  declension 
and  conjugation.  Compositions  such  as  are  at  the 
bottom  of  nominal  and  verbal  inflections,  could  not 
possibly  have  been  elaborated  during  the  Homeric  or 
Vedic  period,  and  all  I  plead  for  is  that  the  same 

1  See  Ormazd  et  Ahriman,  p.  34,  note. 


y]  ATHENE.  409 

fact  should  be  admitted  with  regard  to  the  names 
of  Homeric  and  Vedic  gods  and  heroes.  Even  in 
Homer's  time  they  were  not  of  yesterday,  and  these 
names  cannot  be  expected  to  conform  in  every  respect 
to  the  rules  of  yesterday.  We  cannot  from  Greek 
resources  explain  the  formation  of  even  so  simple 
a  name  as  Zev?  by  the  side  of  Zr\v,  Zfjvos,  much  less 
such  names  as  Athene  or  Artemis  !  It  should  be 
understood,  therefore,  that  if  the  etymology  of  Greek 
mythological  names  cannot  be  carried  out  according 
to  the  general  phonetic  rules  of  classical  Greek  etymo- 
logy, this  is  due  to  the  age  of  mythological  names. 
We  know  that  the  phonetic  laws  of  Modern  Greek 
are  different  from  those  of  Homeric  Greek  ;  why 
should  not  the  phonetic  laws  of  Homeric  Greek  be 
different  from  those  which  prevailed  when  the  names 
of  Homeric  and  pre-Homeric  gods  were  being  elabo- 
rated for  the  first  time  ? 

Evidence  necessarily  limited. 

We  should  also  bear  in  mind  that,  according  to 
the  nature  of  the  case,  some  phonetic  laws  have 
to  rest  on  very  limited  evidence,  often  on  two  or 
three  cases,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  are 
no  more  to  be  gleaned  from  the  language,  such  as 
we  know  it.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  quite 
clear  that  one  single  counter-instance  would  some- 
times outweigh  the  whole  evidence  on  which  a  pho- 
netic rule  is  made  to  rest,  or  at  all  events  would 
considerably  diminish  its  force,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  one  single  word,  such  as  the  second  person 
singular  of  aha,  namely  attha,  is  all  that  we  have 
to  prove  that  the  final  letter  of  that  root  had  once 
possessed  a  dental  tendency.      But  for  this  single 


4IO  EVIDENCE    NECESSARILY    LIMITED.  [chap. 

remnant  nothing  could  have  been  said  for  the 
equation  Ahana  and  Athene  except  that  it  was 
possible,  while  now  we  can  fearlessly  affirm  that 
it  is  founded  on  real  fact,  and  is  phonetically  irre- 
proachable. 

Ganapa£/ja. 

We  might  in  this  respect  learn  a  useful  lesson 
from  Sanskrit  grammarians.  The  whole  of  their 
grammatical  system  is  built  up  on  what  they 
call  Ganas,  i.  e.  classes  of  words.  These  classes  of 
words  have  been  carefully  collected.  The  collection 
began  in  the  Pratisakhyas,  was  carried  on  in  the 
DhatupafAa,  and  reached  its  perfection  in  Parani's 
Ganapaf/aa.  For  instance,  when  Pamni  teaches  that 
certain  words,  though  feminine,  take  no  feminine 
suffix,  he  simply  says,  '  the  words  svasH  et  cetera, 
take  no  feminine  suffix.'  This  &c.  is  not  a  vague  ex- 
pression, but  it  means  that  all  the  words  falling  under 
that  special  rule  have  been  collected  in  the  Ganapa^/ia 
under  '  svasradayaA.'  And  so  they  are,  and  this 
list  is  meant  to  be  complete.  If  it  was  not  so  at 
first,  it  was  added  to  till  it  became  more  and  more 
complete.  Or,  to  take  another  instance,  the  suffix 
ika  with  lengthening  of  the  vowel  of  the  first 
syllable  seems  at  first  very  common.  But  Pamni 
shows  that  it  is  restricted  to  twelve  or  thirteen 
words,  all  of  which  are  found  in  the  Gawa  Vasanta 
et  cetera.  Hence  vasantika,  varshika,  &c,  are  right, 
but  any  other  adjective  formed  in  this  way  from 
words  not  comprised  in  the  Gana  would,  in  Pacini's 
eyes,  be  wrong  or  irregular.  If  any  of  these  ganas 
or  classes  are  formed  according  to  a  general  rule,  and 


y]  GANATATHA.  4II 

comprehend  too  large  a  class  of  words,  the  Ga?ia  is 
called  an  Akriti-gana,  a  formal  or  general  class,  and 
no  attempt  is  made  to  complete  it.  All  other 
Ganas,  however,  are  meant  to  comprehend  a  com- 
plete collection  of  all  words  to  which  either  a  rule 
or  an  exception  to  one  of  Pacini's  rules  applies. 

If  we  possessed  such  a  GanapiW^a  for  the  com- 
parative grammar  of  the  Aryan  languages,  many 
difficulties  would  long  have  disappeared.  We  should 
know  in  each  case  the  exact  number  of  words  in 
which,  as  in  Sk.  han  =  Oeivco,  a  Sk.  initial  h  is 
represented  in  Greek  by  0,  if  followed  by  a  vowel, 
and  we  might  then  simply  refer  to  the  Ga?m  Oelva), 
&c,  for  our  justification.  The  only  work  to  be  done 
by  successive  scholars  would  be  either  to  strike  out 
certain  words  in  a  Gawa,  if  found  faulty,  or  to  com- 
plete it  by  the  addition  of  new  words,  or  lastly  to 
restrict  it  by  other  Gawas  containing  exceptions,  such 
as,  for  instance,  davaTos  ',  where  we  should  expect 

d£v<XTO<$. 

We  might  have  a  Gana  showing  all  the  words 
in  which  the  Sanskrit  ri  is  represented  by  ap  ;  or 
if  this  might  be  treated  as  an  AkWti-gana,  another 
Gana  could  be  added  containing  the  Greek  words 
in  which  Sk.  ri  or  ar  (originally  udatta)  is  through 
assimilation  represented  by  op,  provided  that  the 
op  is  followed,  immediately  or  mediately,  by  o  or  Fo. 
A  third  Gana  might  give  exceptions  to  this  rule 
such  as  opeyo)  (ri(n)g),  [xopTos  (marta),  'Optfpo? 
(Vntra),  &c. 

No  doubt,  such  a  GanapaiAa  would  require  the 
co-operation  of  many  scholars,  but  it  would  supply 

1  K.  Z.,  xxxi,  p.  407. 


412  GANATATRA.  [chap. 

a  safe  and  permanent  foundation  to  Comparative 
Philology,  second  only  to  that  on  which  the  solid 
edifice  of  Pacini's  Sanskrit  Grammar  has  been 
erected  ;  it  would  prevent  the  necessity  of  repeated 
discussion  of  phonetic  changes,  when  settled  once 
for  all  either  by  a  Gawa  or  by  an  AkWti-gana. 

I  am  by  no  means  the  first  who  has  pointed  out 
the  limited  character  of  the  evidence  on  which 
phonetic  rules,  or  so-called  phonetic  laws,  have 
often  been  based.  In  a  very  favourable  notice  of 
Brugmann's  Comparative  Grammar,  a  critic  in  the 
Academy  (Jan.  6,  1894)  remarks: — 'The  words  in 
the  Indo-European  language  which  can  be  compared 
with  one  another  with  a  reasonable  amount  of  cer- 
tainty is,  after  all,  not  very  large  ...  A  question  of 
some  importance  is  suggested  by  this  fact.  How 
can  we  be  sure  that  the  phonetic  laws  we  have 
ascertained  are  not  subject  to  numerous  exceptions, 
or  rather  to  the  action  of  other  laws  with  which 
we  are  not  yet  acquainted  ?  .  .  .  And  yet  a  single 
new  etymology  might  very  materially  modify  the 
generalisations  we  have  made,  and  limit  the  action 
of  our  phonetic  laws  in  an  unexpected  manner.' 
Another  scholar,  Mr.  E.  W.  Fay,  has  lately  spoken 
out  even  more  decidedly.  In  the  American  Journal 
of  Philology,  vol.  xv,  no.  4,  he  writes  :  '  For  a 
lustrum  or  two  the  science  of  linguistics  has  ad- 
vanced on  the  hypothesis  that  there  are  no  ex- 
ceptions to  phonetic  laws.  As  an  a  priori  contention 
this  is  no  better  nor  worse  than  all  things  a  priori. 
Phonetic  laws  as  we  have  them  are  the  result  of  our 
own  inductions  !  The  belief  in  their  inviolability 
depends  on  our  granting  a  priori  several  impossible 
conditions.    I  can  do  no  better  than  quote  the  words 


v]  GAi^APAT^A.  413 

of  Breal  on  this  point  (Transact.  Am.  Phil.  Assoc, 
1893,  P-  21).' 

Briseis. 

That  I  have  always  been  ready,  perhaps  too  ready, 
to  withdraw  doubtful  mythological  etymologies,  I 
have  proved  on  several  occasions.  The  identification 
of  the  name  of  Briseis,  for  instance,  the  daughter  of 
Brises,  with  the  offspring  of  the  Yedic  Bn'saya  was 
very  tempting  to  me.  It  is  said  in  the  Veda  that 
before  the  bright  powers  reconquered  the  light  that 
had  been  stolen  by  the  Pams,  they  conquered  the 
offspring  of  BWsaya.  Achilles,  before  Troy  is  con- 
quered and  Helen  reconquered,  carried  off  the  off- 
spring of  Brises.  At  first  sight  this  coincidence 
may  seem  purely  accidental.  But  if  we  remember 
two  well-established  facts,  first  that  ancient  epic 
poetry  is  in  its  original  elements  a  metamorphosis 
of  mythology,  nowhere  more  than  in  the  Shahnameh, 
and  secondly,  that  mythology  is  a  metaphorical 
representation  of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  we  gain 
a  background  on  which  the  carrying  off  of  the  off- 
spring of  Brzsaya  assumes  much  greater  significance. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  I  forgot  for  the  moment 
the  very  old  rule  that  the  s  between  two  vowels  in 
Sanskrit  ought  to  have  disappeared  in  Greek,  but 
when  I  was  reminded  of  this,  I  at  once  gave  up  my 
identification  of  BWsaya  =  Brises.  I  soon  discovered, 
however,  that  in  BWsaya  the  s  could  not  have  been 
the  ordinary  s,  for  its  retention  would  have  been 
as  anomalous  in  Sanskrit  BWsaya  as  the  retention 
of  the  s  in  Greek  Brises.  If  s  had  been  the  ordinary 
s,  it  would  have  become  sh  in  Sanskrit,  it  could  not 
possibly  have  remained  s.     We   should   have  had 


4^4  BRISEIS.  [CHAP. 

Bnshaya,  not  BWsaya.  Hence  the  s  in  BWsaya, 
whatever  it  is,  is  not  an  ordinary  s,  and  therefore 
it  need  not  have  followed  the  ordinary  phonetic 
rule  in  Greek.  We  have  in  fact  in  Sanskrit  not 
only  bn'si,  but  also  barsa  and  barsva,  and  the  sv 
in  barsva  would  be  correctly  represented  by  a  Greek 
s,  as  in  Tcro?  for  icrcro?  an  original  FlctFo.  Barsva 
in  Sanskrit  means  anything  bulging,  a  bolster,  &c, 
as,  for  instance,  the  alveolar  bulge  formed  by  the 
sockets  of  the  teeth.  BWsi  has  the  same  meaning, 
but  occurs  most  frequently  as  a  name  for  a  cushion 
or  bolster.  Why  could  not  this  have  been  used 
metaphorically  for  the  cloud  or  for  the  coverlet  of 
the  dark  night  ?  We  can  only  guess,  and  are  not 
likely  ever  to  gain  perfect  light  on  these  ancient 
riddles.  Still  there  is  the  fact  that  the  dark 
monsters  against  whom  Indra  fights  are  constantly 
represented  as  shaggy  things,  as  monstra  villosa. 
Barasi,  a  rough  cloth  made  of  bark  (Weber,  Ind. 
Stud.,  v,  p.  439,  note),  may  have  been  formed  from 
root  hris,  like  varaha  from  vrih,  and  the  Zend 
varesa,  hair,  which  Schmidt  compares  with  Buss, 
volosis,  hair,  may  well  be  traced  back  to  bris,  sup- 
posing that  the  s  is  rightly  taken  as  dental,  and 
not  as  palatal  *. 

As  to  the  meaning  of  BWsaya  in  the  Veda,  we 
know  very  little.  There  are  two  passages  only  in 
which  the  word  occurs.  In  Big-veda,  I,  93,  4,  we 
read  that  Agni  and  Soma  overcome  the  offspring  of 
Bnsaya  and  (thus)  found  one  light  for  many ;  in 
Big-veda,  VI,  61,  3,  Saras vati  is  invoked  to  strike 
down  all  who  blaspheme  the  gods,  the  offspring  of 

1  K.  Z.,  xxxii,  p.  386. 


v]  BRISEIS.  415 

every  deceitful  Brosaya.  This  shows  as  clearly  as 
possible  that  BWsaya  belonged  to  the  enemies  of 
the  bright  gods,  to  the  dark  demons  of  the  clouds 
and    of    the   night,    such    as   VWtra,    #ustma   and 

others. 

Night  and  Clouds. 

The  offspring  or  daughter  of  a  dark  demon  may 
be  connected  with   the   darkness  of  the   thunder- 
cloud,   or   with   that    of  the   night.     It   has   been 
shown  that  these  two  struggles,  that  of  the  light 
of  the  blue  sky  against  the  dark  clouds,  and  that 
of  the  sun  against  the  night,  different  as  they  seem 
to  us,  were  conceived  by  the  Vedic   poets  as  one 
and  the  same  struggle,  often  carried  on  by  the  same 
bright  heroes  against  the  same  dark  powers.    Hence 
the  offspring  of  Bn'saya  may  be  a  name  either  for 
lightning  and  rain,  breaking  from  the  dark   cloud, 
or  for  the  morning  and  the  dawn,  breaking  through 
the  dark  night.     Now  it  is  curious  that  in  Greek 
mythology    also,    we    know    very    little    of   Briseis. 
Sometimes,  however,  she  is  called  Hippodameia,  and 
this  is  also  the  name  of  the  wife  of  the   Lapitha 
Peirithoos.     Brisaios  is  said  to  have  been  a  name 
of  Dionysos.     All  this  does  not  help  us  much.     Still 
it  is   curious  to  observe  that  Gerhard   and  others, 
without    any    hints    from    comparative    mythology, 
recognised  in  Briseis  a  being  connected  with  the 
battle  of  the  morning,  the  original  theme  of  so  much 
mythology  and   so  much  epic  poetry.     On  a  vase 
described  by  Gerhard  in  his  Griechische  Vasenbilder, 
vol.  ii,  no.  129,  he  points  out  by  the  side  of  a  picture 
representing  Herakles  as  facing  Kerberos,  another 
picture  representing  a  veiled  woman  between  two 
warriors,  and  he  explains  her  as  Briseis  rather  than 


4l6  NIGHT    AND    CLOUDS.  [chap. 

as  Helena  or  Aethra.  Now  we  must  remember  that 
Orthros  is  the  brother  of  Kerberos,  both  being  the 
children  of  Typhaon  and  Echidna,  and  both  sharing 
the  same  fate  of  being  vanquished  by  Herakles. 
We  should  also  remember  that  Orthros  is  the  dog 
of  Eurytion,  and  that  both  Orthros  and  Eurytion 
were  killed  by  Herakles,  as  the  Centaur  Eurytion, 
when  he  insulted  another  Hippodameia,  the  wife  of 
Peirithoos,  was  punished  by  Peirithoos  and  Theseus. 
Briseis  or  Hippodameia  belongs  therefore  to  a  class 
of  beings  who,  though  connected  by  their  birth  with 
the  dark  side  of  nature,  belong  afterwards  (ratrau 
prabhatayam)  to  the  realm  of  the  bright  ones 
(deva).  Their  typical  representative  is  the  dawn, 
the  daughter  of  the  dark  night,  the  beloved  of  the 
rising  sun.  And  to  this  class  I  imagine  that  Briseis 
belongs,  she  being  first  carried  off  by  Achilles  (Aharyu, 
the  hero  of  the  morning)  before  the  serious  war  be- 
tween the  two  armies  begins. 

Varvma. 
It  ought  never  to  have  been  doubted  that  the 
name  of  the  ancient  Vedic  god  Varum  corresponds  to 
the  Greek  Ovpavos.  Formerly  it  was  admitted  by 
everybody  that  his  name  was  the  same  as  that  of 
Ouranos,  the  sky,  and  the  ancient  god  of  the  sky. 
But  after  a  time  the  usual  bickerings  began.  First 
the  accent  was  said  to  be  different,  as  if  the  accent 
in  Greek  and  Sanskrit  was  always  the  same. 
Then  the  suffix  was  said  to  be  different.  And  so  it 
is.  But  in  how  many  cases  have  words  of  the  same 
meaning  been  formed  by  two  or  three  different 
suffixes1!    In  the  Unadi-kosha,  II,  74,  we  are  dis- 

1  Not  only  do  suffixes  vary,  but  in  Sanskrit  we  find  such 


y]  VARUVA.  417 

tinctly  told  that  by  the  side  of  Varum,  the  name  of 
the  god  and  of  the  tree  (III,  53),  there  was  another 
derivative,  Varawa,  equally  the  name  of  the  god 
and  of  the  tree.  Hence  the  suffix  difficulty  between 
Varuna  and  Ovpavos  disappears,  like  that  between 
Sanskrit  vartaka  and  Greek  oprvg,  and  likewise  that 
between  Varuwa  and  the  Avestic  Varena,  though 
in  this  case  the  phonetic  similarity  does  not 
prove  the  material  identity  of  Sk.Varuna  and  Zend 
Varena.  (See  J.  von  Fierlinger,  Varena  cafy>u- 
gaosa  in  K.  Z.,  xxvii,  p.  474.) 

But  even  then  the  phonetic  conscience  was  not  at 
rest.  Varuna,  we  are  told,  could  not  be  Ovpavos, 
because  Var  could  never  in  Greek  be  represented 
by  ovp.  How  far  phonetic  conscientiousness  may  be 
carried  is  shown  by  Wackernagel,  who  rather  than 
admit  the  possibility  of  the  equation  Vanma  = 
Ovpavos,  proposed  in  K.  Z.,  xxix,  129,  to  derive 
Ovpavos  from  ovpov,  urine,  and  this  from  ovpeco  =  Sk. 
varshayami,  lit.  to  rain.  Ovpavos  is  then  supposed  to 
be  derived  from  a  hypothetical  ovpnj  like  ^XtSavo? 
from  ^XtSrJ.  Considering  that  Aeolic  varieties  such 
as  dpavo<;  and  ajpavos  are  well  authenticated,  there 
is  no  difficulty  whatever  on  Greek  soil  in  identifying 
Attic  ovpavos  with  Aeolic  wpavos.  If  necessary, 
the  long  o)  may  be  explained,  as  proposed  by 
P.  Kretschmar  (K.  Z.,  xxxi,  p.  444),  by  a  pros- 
thetic vowel,  giving  oFopavos  and  ajpavos,  like 
iFeLKocru  for  6lko<tl,  though  such  a  form  is  a  phonetic 
postulate  rather  than  a  linguistic  reality. 

names  as  Sanat-Kumara,  Sanatsur/ata,  and  Sanatana,  or  JSaga- 
deva  and  Nagasena,  used  promiscuously  for  the  same  person. 
In  Greek  we  find  irarpuKknio  from  irdTpoiihos,  and  narpoKXTjos  from 
■narpoKXTjs,  and  many  similar  cases. 
VOL.  I.  e  e 


418  VARUiVA.  [chap. 

This  syllable  var  or  vri  is  liable  of  course  to  many 
disguises  in  Greek,  because  it  may  either  retain  or 
drop  the  initial  v,  and  its  vowel  is  heir  to  all  the 
vicissitudes  to  which  vowels  are  liable.  Thus,  to 
quote  from  Fick's  Dictionary,  we  have  in  Sanskrit 
the  following  offshoots  of  the  root  vri :  vrinoti, 
varate,  umoti,  va-vara,  va-vre  ;  in  Greek  Fopos, 
ovpos,  opdco,  copa,  FepvaOat,  evpixrcrao-Oai,  FpvofxaL. 
Likewise  from  the  root  vrig  we  have  in  Greek  : 
Fp£t,oi,  Fipyov,  FeFopya,  bpyavov. 

Attempts  have  been  made  from  time  to  time  to 
limit  the  number  of  these  vowel  changes.  Some  of 
them,  e.  g.  eopya,  are  due  to  Ablaut,  a  process  the 
causes  of  which,  in  spite  of  recent  researches,  are 
still  involved  in  great  obscurity.  Others  are  due 
to  assimilation  or  to  the  dialectic  influences  which 
likewise  defy  as  yet  any  systematic  treatment.  As 
far  back  as  1879,  De  Saussure  (Systeme  primitif  des 
voyelles,  p.  262)  declared  that  he  would  not  decide 
whether  in  certain  cases  op  and  oa  did  not  represent 
the  Sk.  ri  and  li,  and  he  quoted  a  number  of 
examples,  and  among  them  nopros  =  nm'ta.  Of  late 
there  has  been  a  tendency,  and  an  excellent  tendency 
it  is,  among  comparative  philologists,  to  restrict  as 
much  as  possible  the  number  of  legitimate  or  possible 
changes  of  vowels,  and  to  find  out  under  what 
conditions  certain  changes  are  either  possible  or 
impossible.  Another  school,  however,  represented 
chiefly  by  A.  Noreen,  of  Upsala,  and  other  Scandi- 
navian scholars,  claims  far  greater  freedom  for  the 
vowels  in  the  Indo-European  mother-tongue,  some- 
thing, in  fact, like  what  exists  inSwedish,  where  every 
vowel  may  change  with  every  other  vowel.  (Grundriss 
der  Urgermanischen  Lautlehre,  1894,  J  1 1,  pp.  37~40-) 


v]  VARUNA.  419 

Professor  J.  Schmidt,  in  an  important  article  in 
one  of  the  last  volumes  of  Kuhn's  Zeitschrift  (vol. 
xxxii,  1893),  to  which  I  referred  before,  treats  of 
the  assimilation  of  vowels  in  close  proximity  in  the 
same  word.  He  shows  that  we  must  distinguish 
between  vowel  changes  due  to  Ablaut,  as  for 
instance  (frepco,  (f)6po<s,  and  others  due  to  assimilation, 
such  as  ofiekio-Kos  and  6/3oXos.  And  when  speaking 
of  the  changes  of  ri  or  of  er  and  el,  he  too  states 
that  instead  of  their  normal  representatives  in 
Greek,  viz.  dp,  dX,  pa  and  Xa,  we  find  in  ordinary 
Greek  op  and  oX,  in  cases  when  they  are  followed, 
whether  immediately,  or  divided  by  consonants,  by 
v  or  Fo. 

Such  a  rule,  or,  we  should  rather  say,  such  an 
observation,  if  delicately  handled,  may  prove  very 
useful,  but,  like  many  edged  tools,  it  may  prove 
dangerous  in  less  experienced  hands.  Professor 
Schmidt  carefully  guards  himself  against  being 
supposed  to  have  laid  down  a  hard  and  stringent 
rule  by  putting  in  a  '  fast,'  i.  e.  '  almost.'  This  rule 
applies  almost  exclusively  (fast  nur)  to  an  a  which 
before  or  behind  p  or  X  has  been  reduced  from  a 
high-toned  e.  'At  a  certain  time,'  he  adds  (p.  337), 
'all  unaccented  ep  and  eX  were  assimilated  to  o, 
unless  the  sense  became  obscured,'  and  he  illustrates 
this  by  the  change  of  vowels  in  the  name  of  Topoovrj, 
and  afterwards  (p.  340)  by  the  names  of  'Op^ofievos, 
Tpo(f)c6vios,  and  AeXc^oi.  He  mentions  himself  an 
exception  even  in  cases  where  there  is  no  r  or  1, 
viz.  KoyyyXai  for  KayKvXai,  and  he  explains  that  the 
a  in  <xyKv\o<$  may  be  due  to  an  aversion  for  oy/cvXos, 
which  would  thus  have  become  identical  with 
oyKvXos,    swollen,    pompous.      Like   a   true   scholar 

E  e  2 


420  VARUA7A.  [CHAP. 

who  has  broken  new  ground,  he  knows  the  dangers 
of  a  pioneer,  and  he  thinks  it  right  to  warn  those 
who  simply  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  others,  that 
they  must  always  judge  for  themselves,  because 
what  may  be  called  a  phonetic  rule  is  liable  to 
many  counteracting  influences.  People  ought  to  be 
careful  in  adducing  counter-instances,  and  the  in- 
fluence of  assimilation  should  be  recognised  even 
when  it  can  be  proved  by  few  examples  only l. 
There  may  be  a  phonetic  reason  why  v  and  Fo 
should  react  on  a  preceding  vowel  and  change  it 
to  o,  but  such  a  reason  has  never  been  discovered, 
and  the  real  reason  may  be  found  in  the  r  and  1, 
quite  as  much  as  in  the  v  and  Fo.  Anyhow,  this 
observation  of  Professor  Schmidt's,  so  far  from 
forming  a  valid  argument  against  Varuvia  =  Ovpavos ; 
seems,  on  the  contrary,  to  confirm  it.  Besides,  the 
substance  of  the  mythological  equation  Varuna  = 
Ovpavos,  which  we  shall  have  to  consider  hereafter,  is 
far  too  strong  to  be  neutralised  by  a  slight  phonetic 
irregularity,  even  if  such  an  irregularity  could  be 
proved  to  exist 2.     I  mean  that  even  if  the  Greek 

1  '  Die  zu  alien  Zeiten  kritftigen  Gegenstromungen  haben 
sicher  viele,  vermuthlich  sogar  die  meisten  Wirkungen  des  hier 
waltenden  Gesetzes  wieder  getilgt,  so  dass  man  kaum  hoffen 
darf,  diese  Gesetze  alle  ihrem  vollen  Umfange  nach  jemals  zu 
ermitteln.  Desshalb  muss  man  mit  der  Aufstellung  von 
Gegenbeispielen  sehr  vorsichtig  sein  und  Assimilationen  audi 
dann  anerkennen,  wenn  sie  nur  mit  wenigen  Fallen  zu  belegen 
sind.' 

2  The  first  who  identified  Varuwa  and  Ovpavos  seems  to  have 
been  Westergaard  (Ind.  Stud,  iii,  415).  Darmesteter,  however, 
established  this  equation  on  a  firmer  basis,  dwelling  particularly 
on  the  adjective  of  Varena  in  the  Avesta,  viz.  /jathrugaoshem 
and    the    Vedic    adjective    of    Varima,     viz.    ftaturasris    and 


vj  VAEUATA.  421 

form  were  Ovpavos  or  Ovpawos,  it  would  still  have 
to  be  traced  back  to  the  same  source  as  Varuna. 
If  we  were  to  surrender  the  equation  Varrma  = 
ovpavos  do-re/Doei?,  other  etymologies  would  soon  have 
to  be  surrendered  likewise. 

Orthros. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  same  phonetic  difficulty 
might  be  urged  against  the  mythological  equation 
of  VWtra  =  vO/)#/)09,  an  equation  which,  like  that  of 
Kepfiepos  =  Barbara,  has  been  accepted  by  the  most 
competent  authorities  as  invulnerable,  both  on 
mythological  and  philological  grounds.  It  is  quite 
true  that  "Opdpos  has  the  acute  on  the  first  syllable, 
while  VWtra  has  the  udatta  on  the  last.  But  this 
occurs  again  and  again.  Another  reason  for  repre- 
senting the  equation  VWtra=*Op#po5  as  untenable, 
was  there  being  no  trace  of  a  former  initial  digamma 
in  the  Greek  "OpOpos.  A  word  like  *Op0pos,  however, 
occurs  very  seldom,  nay,  according  to  some,  it  does 
not  occur,  or  ought  not  to  occur  at  all  in  the  whole 
of  Greek  literature.  Therefore  its  having  possessed 
an  initial  digamma,  would,  under  these  circumstances, 
be  very  difficult  to  prove  or  to  disprove.  But  was 
it  not  one  of  the  earliest  achievements  of  Com- 
parative Philology  to  have  proved,  not  only  that 
when  there  were  traces  of  a  digamma  in  Greek, 
they  could  be  substantiated  by  corresponding  words 
in  Sanskrit,  but  likewise  that  in  many  cases  where 
Greek  had  preserved  no  indications  whatever  of  the 
labial    semi-vowel,    whether    from    inscriptions    or 

fcaturanika,  showing  that  the  first  conception  of  the  word  was 
sky  with  its  four  corners,  or  its  four  cardinal  points. 


422  ORTHROS.  [CHAP. 

from  metrical  peculiarities,  or  from  the  testimonies 
of  Greek  grammarians,  its  former  presence  could 
nevertheless  be  established  by  a  comparison  with 
Sanskrit?  I  may  refer  once  more  to  such  well- 
known  cases  as  aVoSjaos  and  aoSjuos,  or  to  Schmidt's 
recent  article,  published  in  1893  (K.  Z.,  xxxii,  p.  383). 
But  this  is  not  all.  We  have  been  informed  that 
the  Sk.  suffix  tra  cannot  appear  in  Greek  as  Opa. 
I  have  always  held  that  no  Sanskrit  suffix  can,  in 
the  strict  sense,  appear  as  a  Greek  suffix,  but  such 
is  the  variety  of  suffixes  which  are  meant  to  serve 
one  and  the  same  purpose,  that  the  same  word  and 
the  same  name  may  often  be  formed  in  two  languages, 
nay  even  in  the  same  language,  with  different 
suffixes.  I  have  therefore  never  hesitated  to  re- 
present such  words  as  *Apr)<s  and  "Apevs,  'Adrjvr)  and 
'Ad-qvaiT),  and  likewise  ykvKvs  and  yXvKepos,  v<ekv<s 
and  v€Kpo<s,  \cyv<s  and  \1yep6s,  as  products  of  the  same 
formative  effort ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  to  doubt 
that  VW-tra  in  Sanskrit  and  "Op-0pos  in  Greek 
have  shared  the  same  cradle  (cf.  Brugmann,  Grund- 
riss,  par.  62),  though  their  suffixes  vary  slightly. 
As  to  the  initial  o  of  Orthros,  whether  it  is  due  to 
assimilation  or  anything  else,  it  can  easily  be 
supported  by  such  words  as  the  epithet  of  Athene, 
which  is  both  'Epydv-q  and  'Opyavrj,  showing  that 
under  exactly  the  same  circumstances  vri  can 
appear  as  dp  or  dp  or  ip.  If  'Opydvr)  should 
be  treated  as  an  Aeolic  form,  the  same  dialectic 
change  (as  in  fjLopvdfxevos  for  ixapvd[i€voi)  might 
of  course  be  claimed  for  "OpOpos.  But  without 
appealing  to  dialectic  influences,  the  identity  of 
opeyco  and  ri(n)g&ti  cannot  be  questioned  (K.  Z., 
xxxii,  p.   348  n.),  and  if  (jLopros,  mortal,  cannot  be 


v]  ORTHROS.  423 

identified  with  mriti,,  dead,  there  is  surely  the 
parallel  form,  Sk.  marta,  mortal,  which  is  unobjec- 
tionable. It  has  been  suggested  that  if  "Opdpos 
should  give  offence  to  a  phonetic  conscience,  we  might 
still  take  it  as  a  parallel  form  with  patronymic 
Guna.  In  that  case  Orthros,  if  not  Vr/tra  himself, 
would  be  one  of  his  manifold  offspring,  a  Vartra ; 
though  there  is  no  necessity  whatever  for  that. 

But  such  is  the  zeal  excited  by  the  equation 
Orthros  =  Vr&'tra  that  his  very  droit  d'existence  has 
been  denied.  And  why  ?  Because  in  one  passage 
where  his  name  occurs  in  Hesiod,  the  MSS.  vary 
between  Orthos  and  Orthros.  But  has  it  been  quite 
forgotten  that  there  are  other  passages  1  in  ever  so 
many  mythological  writers  where  his  name  occurs  ? 
What  would  become  of  its  many  relatives,  such 
as  6p0pof36a<;,  opdpoyorj,  opOpio<$y  dpOpiSios,  6p9pivos, 
to  opOpivov,  opdpevco,  opOpit^o)  ?  Are  they  all  to  be 
deprived  of  their  r  and  to  be  derived  from  dpOos, 
to  satisfy  the  tender  conscience  of  unpitiful, 
classical  scholars  ?  That  one  ignorant  copyist,  not 
knowing  much  about  Orthros,  should  write  the 
more  familiar  dpOos  instead  of  SpOpos  is  natural 
enough.  It  is  the  lectio  facilior.  But  that  a 
copyist  who  never  heard  of  Vn'tra,  should  have 
invented  such  a  name  as  Orthros  in  order  to  sub- 
stitute it  for  the  perfectly  familiar  opdos,  is  more 
than  we  can  be  expected  to  believe.  Besides,  does 
any  scholar  imagine  that  the  existence  of  Orthros 
depends  on  this  single  passage  ?  All  mythologists 
know    that    Orthros    is    a    very   substantial    perso- 

1   Apollod.  ii,  5>  IO>  (pv\a£  8e"Op6pos  6  kvwv  $iK((f)aho£   e£  'E^tfif^r 
kU(  Tv<pu>vus  ytyevr}fi.e'vos. 


424  ORTHROS.  [chap. 

nality,  and  those  who  study  Greek  vases  are  not 
unacquainted  with  his  personal  appearance,  though, 
so  far  as  I  know,  neither  Orthos  nor  Orthros  occurs 
in  any  of  the  Greek  vase  inscriptions.  But  though 
it  is  easy  enough  to  defend  Orthros  against  his 
phonetic  critics,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  explain  how 
the  original  idea  expressed  by  the  Vedic  VWtra 
could  have  been  realised  once  more  in  the  Greek 
Orthros.  Let  us  remember  then  that  in  the  Veda 
VWtra  represents  the  darkness,  whether  of  the 
thunderstorm  or  of  the  night,  and  that  in  both 
capacities,  as  the  dark  demon  of  the  thunder-cloud 
and  of  the  night,  VWtra  is  overcome  by  the  gods  of 
light  and  of  the  morning.  Thus  the  first  moment 
of  the  morning  would  be  the  last  moment  of  VWtra, 
the  morning  would  be  the  defeat  of  VWtra  and  the 
triumph  of  the  luminous  hero.  Instead  of  saying, 
'the  night  is  over/  people  would  have  said,  'VWtra  is 
overthrown,'  or  'Orthros  has  been  slain'  by  Herakles, 
and  the  time  of  the  last  gasp  of  the  night  might 
well  have  been  called  opdpos  (das  Morgengrauen). 
Braun  in  his  Griechische  Mythologie  (§  588)  seems 
to  have  no  doubt  on  this  subject,  for  he  translates 
Orthros  by  Fruhauf  (Up-early),  and  Gerhard  points 
out  that  Orthros  means  the  brightness  of  the  morn- 
ing. Liddell  and  Scott  render  Orthros  by  'the 
time  just  before  or  about  daybreak.'  And  hence 
dpOpofioas,  the  cock,  6p6poy6yj,  the  swallow.  This 
ought  to  suffice  to  show  that  Orthros  is  not  the 
invention  of  comparative  philologists. 

In  Comparative  Mythology  we  must  remember 
that  a  deity  not  only  noscitur  a  socio,  but  likewise 
noscitur  ab  inimico.  Now  the  enemy  of  Orthros  as 
well  as  of  Kerberos  is  Herakles,  and  if  there  is  a 


v]  0RTHR0S.  425 

hero  whose  original  solar  character  has  never  been 
doubted,  even  by  the  most  determined  Euhemerists, 
it  is  surely  Herakles.  Herakles,  therefore,  on  his 
return  from  Hades  may  very  properly  be  said  to 
have  dragged  the  monster  of  darkness,  the  dog  of 
the  night,  to  the  light  of  day,  if  only  for  a  short 
time  as  in  the  case  of  Kerberos,  or  actually  to  have 
killed  the  representative  of  nocturnal  darkness  as 
in  the  case  of  Orthros. 

Recapitulation. 
I  am  quite  aware  that  my  view  of  the  true 
nature  of  phonetic  rules  will  give  great  offence. 
It  is  so  pleasant  to  be  self-righteous,  and  so  easy  to 
misrepresent  the  motives  of  any  plea  in  favour  of 
what  is  certain  to  be  called  phonetic  licence.  I  my- 
self am  by  no  means  ignorant  of  the  dangers  of  such 
a  view  as  I  have  here  ventured  to  propose,  and 
I  must  confess  that  in  former  years  I  was  myself 
one  of  the  straitest  sect  of  phonetic  pharisees.  But 
facts  are  facts,  and  one  must  live  and  learn.  There 
will  always  remain  a  strong  public  opinion  against 
phonetic  laxity,  and  scholars  will  insist  on  very 
strong  arguments  before  they  make  the  slightest 
concession  with  regard  to  ill-supported  phonetic 
changes.  But  such  equations  as  Varu^a  =  Ouranos, 
Ahana  =  Athene,  Dahana  =  Daphne,  will  not 
succumb  to  mere  shakings  of  the  head  ;  and  even  if 
they  were  more  vulnerable  phonetically  than  they 
really  are,  they  would  stand  by  the  undeniable 
similarities  of  their  mythological  character. 

end  or  vol.  1. 


H  Classified    Catalogue 

OF  WORKS  IN 

GENERAL    LITERATURE 

PUBLISHED    BY 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO. 

39    PATERNOSTER    ROW,    LONDON,    E.C. 

gi  and  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK,  and  32  HORNBY  ROAD,  BOMBAY. 

CONTENTS. 


BADMINTON  LIBRARY  (THE)-    - 

BIOGRAPHY,  PERSONAL  ME- 
MOIRS,   &c. 

CHILDREN'S  BOOKS 

CLASSICAL  LITERATURE  TRANS- 
LATIONS, ETC.         .... 

COOKERY,  DOMESTIC  MANAGE- 
MENT, &c. 

EVOLUTION,        ANTHROPOLOGY, 


&c. 


28 


FICTION,  HUMOUR,  &c.  -  -  -  21 
FUR  AND  FEATHER  SERIES  -     12 

HISTORY,       POLITICS,        POLITY, 

POLITICAL  MEMOIRS,  &c.  -  -  3 
LANGUAGE,    HISTORY    AND 

SCIENCE  OF 16 

LONGMANS'    SERIES    OF    BOOKS 

FOR  GIRLS 26 


MANUALS  OF  CATHOLIC  PHIL- 
OSOPHY     16 

MENTAL,  MORAL,  AND  POLITICAL 
PHILOSOPHY 14 

MISCELLANEOUS  AND  CRITICAL 
WORKS 29 

MISCELLANEOUS  THEOLOGICAL 
WORKS 31 

POETRY  AND  THE  DRAMA     -         -     18 
POLITICAL    ECONOMY   AND   ECO- 
NOMICS      16 


POPULAR  SCIENCE  - 
SILVER  LIBRARY  (THE J 
SPORT  AND  PASTIME       - 
TRAVEL   AND   ADVENTURE,   THE 

COLONIES,  &c. 
VETERINARY  MEDICINE,  &c. 
WORKS  OF  REFERENCE - 


24 
27 


9 
25 


INDEX     OF     AUTHORS     AND     EDITORS. 


Page 

3,18 

14.  15 

14 

3 

28 

18 

7 

18 


Abbott  (Evelyn) 
■  (T.  K.)       -        - 

(E.  A.)      -        - 

Acland  (A.  H.  D.)  - 
Acton  (Eliza)  - 
Acworth  (H.  A.) 
Adeane  (J.  H.)  . 
/Eschylus 
Ainger  (A.  C.)  - 
Albemarle  (Earl  of)  - 
Alden  (W.  L.)  - 
Allen  (Grant)  - 
Allingham  (W.) 
Anstey  (F.) 
Aristophanes  - 
Aristotle  - 
Armstrong     (G.     I 

Savage) 

—  (E-J-)      -    : 

Arnold  (Sir  Edwin) 

(Dr.  T.)      - 

Ashley  (W.  J.)  - 
Astor(J.J.)       - 
A  telier  du  Lys  (A  uthor 
of)-        -        -        - 


Babington  (W.  D.)  -        17 


-  14,  i£ 


19 

19,  29 

8, 19 

3 
16 

21 

26 


Page 
Bacon  -  -  -  7,  14 
Baden-Powell  (B.  H.)  3 
Bagehot  (W.)  -  7,  16,  29 
Bagwell  (R.)     -        -  3 

Bain  (Alexander)      -        14 
Baker  (James)  -        -        21 

(Sir  S.  W.)        -  8 

Balfour  (A.  J 
Ball  (J.  T.) 
Baring-Gould    (Rev 

S.)  ...  27,  29 

Barnett  (Rev.  S.  A.  & 

Mrs.)  -  -  -  16 
Baynes  (T.  S.)  -  -  29 
Beaconsfield  (Earl  of)  21 
Beaufort  (Duke  of)  -  10,11 


-  u,3i 
3 


Becker  (Prof.) 
Beesly  (A.  H.)  - 
Bell  (Mrs.  Hugh) 
Bent  (J.  Theodore) 
Besant  (Sir  Walter) 
Bickerdyke  (J.) 
Bicknell  (A.  C.) 
Bird  (R.)   - 
Black  (Clementina)  . 
Blackwell  (Elizabeth) 
Boase  (Rev.  C.  W.) - 


18 
19 
19 

8 

3 
11,  12 


Page 

Boedder  (B.)     -        -  16 

Bolland  (W.  E.)        -  14 

Bosanquet  (B.)  -  14 
Boyd  (Rev.A.  K.  H.)7, 29,  31 

Brassey  (Lady)          -  8,  9 

(Lord)  3,  8,  12,  16 

Bray  (C.  and  Mrs.)  -  14 
Bright  (J.  F.)  -  -  3 
Broadfoot  (Major  W.)  10 
Brogger  (W.  C.)  -  7 
Brown  (J.  Moray)  -  n 
Browning  (H.  Ellen)  9 
Buck  (H.  A.)  -  -  12 
Buckle  (H.  T.)  -  -  3 
Bull  (T.)  -  -  -  28 
Burke  (U.  R.)  -  -  3 
Burrows  (Montagu)  4 
Butler  (E.  A.)  -  -  24 
(Samuel)  -        -  29 


Cameron  of  Lochiel 
Cannan  (E.) 

(F.  Laura) 

Carmichael  (J.) 
Chesney  (Sir  G.) 
Chisholm  (G.  G.)      - 


Cholmondelev-Pennell 

(H.)        -     '   -        - 
Christie  (Nimmo)     - 
Cicero        - 
Clarke  (Rev.  R.  F.)  - 
Clodd  (Edward) 
Clutterbuck  (W.  J.)  - 
Cochrane  (A.)  - 
Comyn  (L.  N.) 
Conington  (John)     - 
Conybeare  (Rev.  W.  J.) 

&  Howson  (Dean) 
Coventry  (A.)  - 
Cox  (Harding) 
Crake  (Rev.  A.  D.)  - 
Creiehton  (Bishop) - 
Cuningham  (G.  C.)  - 
Curzon  (Hon.  G.  N.) 
Cutts  (Rev.  E.  L.)    - 


Davidson  (W.  L.) 
Davies  (J.  F.)   - 
De  la  Saussaye  (C. 
Deland  (Mrs.)  - 
Dent  (C.  T.)     - 
Deploige  - 
De  Salis  (Mrs.) 


■  14,  16 
18 
32 
26 
11 
17 
28,  29 


INDEX     OF     AUTHORS     AND     EDITORS— continued. 


19 

I3>  21 
16 


Page 

De  Tocqueville  (A.)  -  3 

Devas  (C.  S.)    -        -  16 

Dickinson  (G.  L.)     -  4 

Dougall  (L.)      -        -  21 

Dovvell  (S.)        -        -  16 

Doyle  (A.  Conan)     -  21 

Dreyfus  (Irma)          -  30 

Du  Bois  (W.  E.  B.)r  4 

Dufferin  (Marquis  of)  12 

Dunbar  (Mary  F.)     -  20 

Ebrington  (Viscount)  12 

Egbert  (J.  C.)    -        -  18 

Ellis  (J.  H.)       -        -  13 

Ewald  (H.)         -        -  4 

Falkener  (E.)    -         -  13 

Farnell  (G.  S.)  -  -  18 
Farrar  (Dean)   -        -  16,  21 

Fitzwygram  (Sir  F.)  10 

Florian  19 

Follett  (M.  P.)  -        -  4 

Ford  (H.)  13 

Fowler  (Edith  H.)    -  21 

Francis  (Francis)      -  13 

Freeman  (Edward  A.)  4 

Frothingham  (A.  L.)  30 
Froude  (James  A.)  4,  7,  9, 21 

Furneaux  (W.)           -  24 

Galton  (W.  F.)          -  17 

Gardiner  (Samuel  R.)  4 

Gerard  (D.)  -  -  26 
Gibbons  (J.  S.)           -  II,  12 

Gibson  (Hon.  H.)     -  13 

Gill  (H.J.)         -        -  22 
Gleig  (Rev.  G.  R.)    - 
Goethe 
Graham  (P.  A.) 

(G.  F.)        - 

Grant  (Sir  A.)  - 

Graves  (R.  P.)  -        -  7 

Green  (T.  Hill)         -  14 

Greville  (C.  C.  F.)    -  4 

Grey  (Maria)              -  26 

Grose  (T.  H.)    -        -  14 

Grove  (F.  C.)    -        -  11 

(Mrs.  Lilly)       -  11 

Gurney  (Rev.  A.)      -  19 

Gwilt  (J.)  -        -        -  30 

Haggard  (H.    Rider)  21 

Hake  (O.)  -        -        -  12 

Halliwell-Phillipps(J.)  8 

Hamlin  (A.  D.  F.)    -  30 

Harding  (S.  B.)         -  4 

Hart  (Albert  B.)        -  4 

Harte  (Bret)      -        -  22 

Hartwig(G.)     -        -  24 

Hassall  (A.)  -  -  6 
Haweis  (Rev.  H.  R.)    7,  30 

Hayward  (Jane  M.)  -  24 

Hearn  (W.  E.)  -  -  4 
Heathcote(J.  M.and 

C.  G.)  -  -  12 
Helmholtz  (Hermann 

von)    -         -        -  24 

Henry  (W.)        -         -  12 

Herbert  (Col.  Kenney)  12 

Hewins  (W.  A.  S.)    -  17 

Hillier  (G.  Lacy)  -  10 
Hodgson  (ShadworthH.)  14 

Holroyd  (Maria  J.)  -  7 

Hope  (Anthony)        -  22 

Hornung  (E.  W.)     -  22 

Houston  (D.  F.)        -  4 

Howell  (G.)       -        -  16 

Howitt  (W.)      -        -  9 

Hudson  (W.  H.)       -  24 

Hueffer  (F.  M.)         -  7 

Hume  (David)  -        -  14 

Hunt  (Rev.  W.)        -  4 

Hutchinson  (Horace  G.)  n 


Page  I 

Jefferies  (Richard)    -  30 

Jones  (H.  Bence)      -  25  I 

Johnson  (J.  &  J.  H.)  30  j 

Jordan  (W.  L.)          -  16 

Jowett  (Dr.  B.)         -  17 

Joyce  (P.  W.)    -        -  4 

Justinian  -        -        -  14 

Kalisch  (M.  M.)  -  32  ' 
Kant  (I.)  -  -  -  14,  15 
Kaye  (Sir  J.  W.)       -  5 

Kerr  (Rev.  J.)  -  -  12 
Killick  (Rev.  A.  H.)  -  15 
Kitchin  (Dr.  G.  W.)  4 

Knight  (E.  F.)  -  5,  9,  12 
Kostlin  (J.)        -        -  7 

Ladd  (G.  T.)     -        -         15 

Lang  (Andrew)  5,  10,  11,  13, 

14,  17,  18,  19,  20,  22,  26,  30 

Lascelles  (Hon.  G.)  -  10,  11 

5 

31 

29 

5.  19 

9 

7 

15 

25 

19 

4 

4 


Ingelow  (Jean) 


19,  26 


Laurie  (S.  S 

Leaf  (Walter)    - 

Lear  (H.  L.  Sidney)  - 

Lecky  (W.  E.  H.)     - 

Lees  (J.  A.) 

Lester  (L.  V.)   - 

Lewes  (G.  H.)  - 

Lindley(J.) 

Lindsav  (Lady) 

Lodge  (H.  C.)  - 

Loftie  (Rev.  W.  J.)  - 

Longman  (C.  J.)    10,  13,  30 

(F.  W.)      -        -         13 

(G.  H.)       -        -11,12 

Lowell  (A.  L.)  -        -  5 

Lubbock  (Sir  John)  -  17 
Lucan  -  -  -  18 
Lyall  (Edna)  -  -  22 
Lyttelton  (Hon.  R.  H.)  10 
Lytton  (Earl  of)        -         19 


MacArthur  (Miss  E.  A.)  17 
Macaulay  (Lord)  5,  6,  20 
MacColl  (Canon)       -  6 

Macdonald  (George)  20,  32 
Macfarren  (Sir  G.  A.)  30 
Magruder  (Julia)  -  22 
Mackail  (J.  W.)  -  18 
Mackinnon  (J.)  -  6 

Macleod  (H.  D.)  -  16 
Macpherson  (Rev.  H.  A.)i2 
Maher  (M.)  -  -  16 
Malleson  (Col.  G.  B.)  5 

Mandello  (J.)  -  -  17 
Marbot  (Baron  de)    -  7 

Marquand  (A.)  -  -  30 
Marshman  (J.  C.)     -  7 

Martineau  (Dr.  James)  32 
Maskelyne  (J.  N.)  -  13 
Matthews  (Brander)  22 
Maunder  (S.)  -  -  25 
Max  Miiller  (F.) 

15,  16,  30,  32 
May  (Sir  T.  Erskine)  6 

Meade  (L.  T.)  -  -  26 
Melville  (G.  J.  Whyte)  22 
Merivale  (Dean)        -  6 

Merriman  (H.  S.)  -  22 
Mill  (James)  -  -  15 
(John  Stuart)  -  15,  16 
30 
26 
26 
6 
25 
14 


Milner  (G.) 
Miss  Molly  (Author of) 
Molesworth  (Mrs.)   - 
Montague  (F.  C.)     - 
Moore  (T.) 

(Rev.  Edward)  - 

Morris  (W.)       -     20,  2: 

(Mowbray) 

Mosso  (A.) 
Mulhall  (M.  G.) 
Munk  (W.) 
Murray  (R.  F.) 


Nansen  (F.) 
Nesbit  (E.) 
Newman  (Cardinal)  - 


O'Brien  (W.)    - 
Ogle(W.)- 
Oliphant  (Mrs.) 
Oliver  (W.  D.) 
Onslow  (Earl  of) 
Orchard  (T.  N.) 
Osbourne (L)    - 


Page 
7 


Palmer  (A.  H.)  -  8 

Park  (W.)  -        -         13 

Parr  (Mrs.  Louisa)  -  26 
Pavne-Gallwey    (Sir 

'  R.)  -  -  -11,13 
Peary  (Mrs.  Josephine)  9 
Peek(H.)-  -  -  11 
Pembroke  (Earl  of)  -  12 
Perring  (Sir  P.)  -  19 
Phillips  (M.)  -  -  32 
Phillipps-Wolley(C)  10,22 
Piatt  (S.  &  J.  J.)  -  20 
Pleydell-Bouverie  (E.  O.)  12 
Pole  (W.)  -  -  -  13 
Pollock  (W.  H.)  -  11 
Poole    (W.    H.    and 

Mrs.)  -  -  -  29 
Poore  (G.  V.)  -  -  31 
Potter  (J.)  -        -        16 

Prevost  (C.)  -  -  n 
Pritchett  (R.  T.)  -  12 
Proctor  (R.  A.)-     13,24,31 


Quill  (A.  W.)  - 
Quillinan  (Mrs.) 
Quintana  (A.)   - 


Raine  (Rev.  James)  -  4 

Ransome  (Cyril)  -  3 

Rhoades  (J.)      -  -18,20 

Rhoscomyl  (O.)  -  23 

Rich  (A.)  -        -  -  18 

Richardson  (Sir  B.  W.)  31 

(C.)    -        -  -  12 

Richman  (I.  B.)  -  6 

Rickaby  (John)  -  16 

■ (Joseph)     -  -  16 

Ridley  (Annie  E.)  -  7 

(E.)    -        -  -  18 

Riley  (J.  W.)     -  -  20 

Roget  (Peter  M.)  -  16,  25 

Rokeby  (C.)       -  -  23 

Rolfsen  (N.)      -  -  7 
Romanes  (G.  J.) 

8,  15,  17,  20,  32 

(Mrs.)         -  -  8 

Ronalds  (A.)      -  -  13 

Roosevelt  (T.)  -  -  4 

Rossetti  (M.  F.)  -  31 

Russell  (Bertrand)  -  17 


Saintsbury  (G.)         -  12 

Sandars  (T.  C.)          -  14 

Seebohm  (F.)    -        -  6,  8 

Selous  (F.  C.)   -        -  10 

Selss  (A.  M.)     -         -  19 

Sewell  (Elizabeth  M.)  23 

Shakespeare      -        -  20 

Shand  (A.  I.)     -        -  12 

Sharpe  (R.  R.)  -        -  6 

Shearman  (M.)          -  10 

Sheppard  (Rev.  Edgar)  6 

Sinclair  (A.)      -        -  12 

Smith  (R.  Bosworth)  6 

(W.  P.  Haskett)  9 

Soderini  (Count  E.)  -  17 

Solovyoft  (V.  S.)       -  31 

Sophocles          -        -  18 

Soulsby  (Lucy  H.)    -  26 


Spedding  (J.)     - 
Stanley  (Bishop) 

Steel  (A.  G.)      -        -  10 

(J.H.)        -        -  10 

Stephen  (Sir  James)  8 

(Leslie)  9 

Stephens  (H.  Morse)  6 

(W.  W.)    -        -  8 

Stevens  (R.  W.)        -  31 
Stevenson  (R.  L.)     -  23,  26 

Stock  (St.  George)    -  15 

'Stonehenge'   -        -  10 

Storr  (F.)  -        -        -  14 
Stuart-Wortley  (A.J.)  11,12 


7.  14 
24 


Stubbs  (J.  W.)  - 
Sturdy  (E.  T.)  - 
Sturgis(J.) 
Suffolk  &  Berkshire 

(Earl  of)  - 
Sullivan  (Sir  E.) 
Sully  (James)  - 
Supernatural  Religion 

(Author  of ) 
Sutherland  (A.  and  G.) 
Suttner  (B.  von) 
Swinburne  (A.  J.)     - 
Symes  (J.  E.)    - 


Tacitus      -        -        -  18 

Tavlor  (Meadows)    -  17 

Tebbutt  (C.  G.)         -  12 

Thompson  (N.  G.)    -  13 

Thornhill  (W.  J.)      -  18 

Todd  (A.)  6 

Toynbee  (A.)     -        -  17 

Trevelyan(Sir  G.  O.)  7 

(C.  P.)        -        -  17 

Trollope  (Anthony)  -  23 

Tvndall  (J.)        -        -  9 

Tyrrell  (R.  Y.)  -        -  18 

Upton    (F.    K.    and 

Bertha)       -        -  26 

Verney   (Frances    P. 

and  Margaret  M.)  8 

Vincent  (J.  E.)-        -  17 

Virgil  iS 

Vivekananda  (Swami)  32 

Wakeman  (H.  O.)     -  6 

Walford  (Mrs.)          -  23 

Walker  (Jane  H.)      -  29 

Walpole  (Spencer)    -  6 

Walrond  (Col.  H.)    -  10 

Walsingham  (Lord)-  11 

Walter  (J.)         -        -  8 

Watson  (A.  E.  T.)    -  11,  12 

Waylen  (H.  S.  H.)   -  3)0 
Webb  (Mr.  and  Mrs. 

Sidney)       -        -  17 

—  (T.  E.)       -        -  19 

Weber  (A.)       -        -  15 

Weir  (Capt.  R.)         -  n 

West  (B.  B.)     -        -  23,  31 

Weyman  (Stanley)  -  23 
Whately(Archbishop)  14, 15 

(E.  Jane)  -        -  16 

Whishaw  (F.  J.)        -    9,  23 

Whitelaw  (R.)  -        -  18 

Wilcocks  (J.  C.)        -  13 

Willich  (C.  M.)         -  25 

Witham  (T.  M.)        -  12 

Wolff  (H.  W.)  -        -  6 

Wood  (Rev.  J.  G.)    -  25 

Woodgate  (W.  B.)   -  10 

Wood-Martin  (W.  G.)  6 

Wordsworth  (Elizabeth)  26 

Wylie  (J.  H.)    -        -  6 

Youatt  (W.)      -        -  10 

Zeller  (E.)         •        -  15 


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Eskimo  Life. 
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With  31  Illustrations. 


Oliver. — Crags  and  Craters: 
Rambles  in  the  Island  of  Reunion.  By 
William  Dudley  Oliver,  M.A.  With 
27  Illustrations  and  a  Map.     Cr.  8vo.,  65. 

Peary. — -My  Arctic  Journal:  a 
year  among  Ice-Fields  and  Eskimos.  By 
Josephine  Diebitsch-Peary.  With  19 
Plates,  3  Sketch  Maps,  and  44  Illustrations 
in  the  Text.     8vo.,  12s. 

Quillinan. — Journal  of  a  Few 
Months'  Residence  in  Portugal,  and 
Glimpses  of  the  South  of  Spain.  By  Mrs. 
Quillinan  (Dora  Wordsworth).  New 
Edition.  Edited,  with  Memoir,  by  Edmund 
Lee,  Author  of  '  Dorothy  Wordsworth,'  &c. 
Crown  8vo.,  65. 

Smith. — Climbing  in  the  British 
Isles.  By  W.  P.  Haskett  Smith.  With 
Illustrations  by  Ellis  Carr,  and  Numerous 
Plans. 

Part  I.  England.     i6mo.,  35.  6d. 

Part  II.   Wales  and  Ireland.     i6mo., 

3s.  bd. 
Part  III.  Scotland.         [In  preparation. 

Stephen.  —  The  Play-Ground  of 
Europe.  By  Leslie  Stephen.  New 
Edition,  with  Additions  and  4  Illustrations, 
Crown  8vo.,     6s.  net. 

THREE  IN  NOR  WA  Y.      By  Two 

of  Them.    With  a  Map  and  59  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  25.  boards,  2s.  bd.  cloth. 

Tyndall. — The  Glaciers  of  the 
Alps:  being  a  Narrative  of  Excursions 
and  Ascents.  An  Account  of  the  Origin 
and  Phenomena  of  Glaciers,  and  an  Ex- 
position of  the  Physical  Principles  to  which 
they  are  related.  By  John  Tyndall, 
F.R.S.  With  numerous  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo.,  6s.  bd.  net. 

Whishaw. — The  Romance  of  the 

Woods  :  Reprinted  Articles  and  Sketches. 
By  Fred.  J.  Whishaw.     Crown  Svo.,  6s. 


8  MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Biography,   Personal  Memoirs,   &e. 


-continued. 


Romanes. — The  Life  and  Letters 
of  George  John  Romanes,  M.A.,  LL.D., 
F.R.S.  Written  and  Edited  by  his  Wife. 
With  Portrait  and  2  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo.,  6s. 

Seebohm. — TheOxford  Reformers 
—John  Golbt,  Erasmus  and  Thomas 
More  :  a  History  of  their  Fellow-Work. 
By  Frederic  Seebohm.     8vo.,  14s. 

Shakespeare.  —  Outlines  of  the 
Life  of  Shakespeare.  By  J.  O.  Halli- 
well-Phillipps.  With  Illustrations  and 
Fac-similes.     2  vols.     Royal  8vo.,  £1  is. 

Shakespeare's    True    Life.       By 

James  Walter.     With  500  Illustrations  by 
Gerald  E.  Moira.     Imp.  8vo.,  21s. 

Stephen.— Essays  in  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Biography.  By  Sir  James  Stephen. 
Crown  8vo.,  ys.  6d. 


Turgot. — The  Life  and  Writings 
of  Turgot,  Comptroller-General  of  France, 
1774-1776.  Edited  for  English  Readers  by 
W.  Walker  Stephens.     8vo.,  12s.  6d. 

Verney.  —Memoirs  of  the  Verney 
Family. 
Vols.  I.  &  II.,  During  the  Civil  War. 
By  Frances  Parthenope  Verney.  With 
38  Portraits,  Woodcuts  and  Fac-simile. 
Royal  8vo.,  42s. 
Vol.  III.,  During  the  Commonwealth. 
1650-1660.  By  Margaret  M.  Verney. 
With  10  Portraits,  &c.     Royal  8vo.,  21s. 

Wellington. — Life  of  the  Duke 
of  Wellington.  By  the  Rev.  G.  R. 
Gleio,  M.A.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Wolf. — The  Life  of  Joseph  Wolf, 
Animal  Painter.  By  A.  H.  Palmer. 
With  53  Plates  and  14  Illustrations  in  the 
Text.     8vo.,  21s. 


Travel  and  Adventure,  the  Colonies,  &e. 


Arnold  (Sir  Edwin). 

Seas  and  Lands.  With  71  Illus- 
trations.    Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Wandering     Words.       With     45 

Illustrations.     8vo.,  18s. 

East  and  West:  With  14  Illus- 
trations by  R.  T.  Pritchett.     8vo.,  18s. 

A  USTRALLA  AS  LT  LS,  or  Facts 
and  Features,  Sketches,  and  Incidents  of 
Australia  and  Australian  Life  with  Notices 
of  New  Zealand.  By  A  Clergyman, 
thirteen  years  resident  in  the  interior  of 
New  South  Wales.     Crown  Svo.,  5s. 

Baker  (Sir  S.  W.). 

Eight  Years  in  Ceylon.  With  6 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

The  Rifle  and  the  Hound  in 
Ceylon.  With  6  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Bent  (J.  Theodore). 

The  Ruined  Cities  of  Mashona- 
land  :  being  a  Record  of  Excavation 
and  Exploration  in  1891.  With  117 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 


Bent  (J.  Theodore) — continued. 

The  Sacred  City  of  the  Ethio- 
pians :  being  a  Record  of  Travel  and 
Research  in  Abyssinia  in  1893.  With  8 
Plates  and  65  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
8vo.,  10s.  £>d. 

Bicknell. — Travel  and  Adventure 
in  Northern  Queensland.  By  Arthur 
C.  Bicknell.  With  24  Plates  and  22  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.     8vo.,  15s. 

Brassey .  —  Vo  ya  ges  a  nd  Tra  vels 
of  Lord  Brassey,  K.C.B.,  D.C.L.,  1862- 
1894.  Arranged  and  Edited  by  Captain  S. 
Eardley-Wilmot.     2  vols.     Cr.  8vo.,  10s. 

Brassey  (the  late  Lady). 

A  Voyage  in  the  '  Sunbeam;'  Our 

Home    on    the    Ocean   for    Eleven 

31  oa  ths. 

Library  Edition.  With  8  Maps  and 
Charts,  and  118  Illustrations.     8vo.  21s. 

Cabinet  Edition.  With  Map  and  66 
Illustrations.     Crown  Svo.,  7s.  bd. 

Silver  Library  Edition.  With  66  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Popular  Edition.  With  60  Illustrations. 
4to.,  6d.  sewed,  is.  cloth. 

School  Edition.  With  37  Illustrations. 
Fcp.,  2s.  cloth,  or  3s.  white  parchment. 


MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Travel  and  Adventure,  the  Colonies,  &e. — continued. 

Brassey  (the  late  Lady) — continued. 

Sunshine  and  Storm  in  the  East. 
With  2  Maps  and  141 


Library  Edition. 

Illustrations. 
Cabinet  Edition. 

Illustrations. 

Popular  Edition. 


8VO.,    215. 

With  2  Maps  and  114 
Crown  Svo.,  js.  6d. 
With  103  Illustrations. 
4to.,  6d.  sewed,   is.  cloth. 

In  the  Trades,  the  Tropics,  and 
the  '  Roaring  Forties.  ' 
Cabinet   Edition.      With    Map    and    220 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  7s.  6<f. 
Popular  Edition.     With  183  Illustrations. 

4to.,  6d.  sewed,  is.  cloth. 

Three  Voyages  in  the  '  Sunbeam\ 
Popular  Ed.  With  346  Illust.    410.,  2s.  6d. 

Browning. — A  Girl's  Wanderings 
in  Hungary.  By  H.  Ellen  Browning. 
With  Map  and  20  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo., 
js.  6d. 

Froude  (James- A.). 

Oceana  :  or  England  and  her  Col- 
onies. With  9  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo., 
2s.  boards,  2s.  6d.  cloth. 

The  English  in  the  West  Indies  : 
or,  the  Bow  of  Ulysses.  With  9  Illustra- 
tions. Crown  8vo.,  25.  boards,  2s.  6d.  cloth. 

Howitt. —  Visits  to  Remarkable 
Places.  Old  Halls,  Battle-Fields,  Scenes, 
illustrative  of  Striking  Passages  in  English 
History  and  Poetry.  By  William  Howitt. 
With  80  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d. 

Knight  (E.  F.). 

The  Cruise  of  the  '  Alerte  ' :  the 
Narrative  of  a  Search  for  Treasure  on  the 
Desert  Island  of  Trinidad.  With  2  Maps 
and  23  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d. 

Where  Three  Empires  meet:    a 

Narrative  of  Recent  Travel  in  Kashmir, 
Western  Tibet,  Baltistan,  Ladak,  Gilgit, 
and  the  adjoining  Countries.  With  a 
Map  and  54  illustrations.    Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

The  '  Falcon"  on  the  Baltic:  a 
Voyage  from  London  to  Copenhagen  in 
a  Three-Tonner.  With  10  Full-page 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d. 

Lees  and  Clutterbuck. — B.C.  1887  : 

A  Ramble  in  British  Columbia.  By  J.  A. 
Lees  and  W.  J.  Clutterbuck.  With  Map 
and  75  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 


Nansen  (Fridtjof). 

The  First  Crossing  of  Green- 
land. With  numerous  Illustrations  and 
a  Map.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Eskimo  Fife.  With  31  Illustrations. 
8vo.,  16s. 

Oliver. — Crags     and      Cra  ters  : 

Rambles  in  the  Island  of  Reunion.  By 
William  Dudley  Oliver,  M.A.  With 
27  Illustrations  and  a  Map.     Cr.  8vo.,  6s. 

Peary. — My  Arctic  Journal:  a 
year  among  Ice-Fields  and  Eskimos.  By 
Josephine  Diebitsch-Peary.  With  19 
Plates,  3  Sketch  Maps,  and  44  Illustrations 
in  the  Text.     8vo.,  12s. 

Quillinan. — Journal   of  a    Few 

M 'oaths'  Resweace  in  Portugal,  and 
Glimpses  of  the  South  of  Spain.  By  Mrs. 
Quillinan  (Dora  Wordsworth).  New 
Edition.  Edited,  with  Memoir,  by  Edmund 
Lee,  Author  of  '  Dorothy  Wordsworth,'  &c. 
Crown  8vo.,  65. 

Smith. — Climbing  in  the  British 
Isles.  By  W.  P.  Haskett  Smith.  With 
Illustrations  by  Ellis  Carr,  and  Numerous 
Plans. 

Part  I.  England.     i6mo.,  3s.  6d. 

Part  II.   Wales  and  Ireland.     i6mo., 

3s.  bd. 
Part  III.  Scotland.         [In  preparation. 

Stephen.  —  The  Play-Ground  of 
Europe.  By  Leslie  Stephen.  New 
Edition,  with  Additions  and  4  Illustrations, 
Crown  8vo.,     6s.  net. 

THREE  IN  NOR  WA  Y.      By  Two 

of  Them.  With  a  Map  and  59  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  2s.  boards,  2s.  6d.  cloth. 

Tyndall. — The    Glaciers    of    the 

Alps  :  being  a  Narrative  of  Excursions 
and  Ascents.  An  Account  of  the  Origin 
and  Phenomena  of  Glaciers,  and  an  Ex- 
position of  the  Physical  Principles  to  which 
they  are  related.  By  John  Tyndall, 
F.R.S.  With  numerous  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo.,  6s.  6d.  net. 

Whishaw. — The  Romance  of  the 
Woods  :  Reprinted  Articles  and  Sketches. 
By  Fred.  J.  Whishaw.     Crown  Svo. ,  6s. 


io        MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Veterinary  Medicine,  &e. 


Steel  (John  Henry) 


A  Treatise  on  the  Diseases  of 
the  Dog.  With  88  Illustrations.  8vo., 
ios.  bd. 

A   Treatise  on  the  Diseases  Df 

the  Ox.  With  1 19  Illustrations.  8vo.,  155. 

A  Treatise  on  the  Diseases  of 
the  Sheep.  With  100  Illustrations. 
8vo.,  12s. 

Outlines  of  Equine  Anatomy  :  a 

Manual  for  the  use  of  Veterinary  Students 
in  the  Dissecting  Room.     Cr.  8vo.,  7s.  bd. 


Fitzwygram. — Horses    and 

Stables.  By  Major-General  Sir  F.  Fitz- 
wygram, Bart.  With  56  pages  of  Illustra- 
tions.    8vo.,  2S.  bd.  net. 

'  Stonehenge.' —  The  Dog  in 
Health  and  Disease.  By  '  Stone- 
henge '.  With  78  Wood  Engravings. 
8vo.,  75.  bd. 

Youatt  (William). 

The  Horse.  Revised  and  Enlarged 
by  W.  Watson,  M.R.C.V.S.  With  52 
Wood  Engravings.     8vo.,  js.  bd. 

The  Dog.  Revised  and  Enlarged- 
With  33  Wood  Engravings.      8vo.,  6s. 


Sport  and   Pastime. 
THE  BADMINTON  LIBRARY. 

Edited  by  HIS  GRACE  THE  DUKE  OF  BEAUFORT,  K.G. ;    Assisted  by  ALFRED  E. 

T.  WATSON. 

Complete  in  28  Volumes.      Crown  8vo.,  Price  10s.  bd.  each  Volume,  Cloth. 

%*  The  Volumes  are  also  issued  half-bound  in  Leather,  with  gilt  top.     The  price  can  be  had 

from  all  Booksellers. 


ARCHER  Y.     By  C.  J.  Longman  and 

Col.  H.Walrond.  With  Contributions  by 
Miss  Legh,  Viscount  Dillon,  Major  C. 
Hawkins  Fisher,  &c.  With  2  Maps,  23 
Plates  and  172  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo. ,   los.bd. 

ATHLETICS  AND    FOOTBALL. 

By  Montague  Shearman.  With  6  Plates 
and  52  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
8vo.,  105.  bd. 

BIG     GAME     SHOOTING.       By 

Clive  Phillipps-Wolley. 

Vol.  I.  AFRICA  AND  AMERICA. 
With  Contributions  by  Sir  Samuel  W. 
Baker,  W.  C.  Oswell,  F.  J.  Jackson, 
Warburton  Pike,  and  F.  C.  Selous. 
With  20  Plates  and  57  Illustrations  in  the 
Text.     Crown  8vo. ,  105.  bd. 

Vol.  II.  EUROPE,  ASIA,  AND  THE 
ARCTIC  REGIONS.  With  Contribu- 
tions by  Lieut. -Colonel  R.  Heber 
Percy,  Arnold  Pike,  Major  Algernon 
C.  Heber  Percy,  &c.  With  17  Plates 
and  56  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
8vo.,  10s.  bd. 


BILLLARDS.  By  Major  W.  Broad- 
foot,  R.E.  With  Contributions  by  A.  H. 
Boyd,  Sydenham  Dixon,  W.  J.  Ford, 
Dudley  D.  Pontifex,  &c.  With  n  Plates, 
19  Illustrations  in  the  Text,  and  numerous 
Diagrams  and  Figures.    Crown  8vo.,  105.  bd. 


BOATING.  By  W.  B.  Woodgate. 
With  10  Plates,  39  Illustrations  in  the  Text, 
and  from  Instantaneous  Photographs,  and 
4  Maps  of  the  Rowing  Courses  at  Oxford, 
Cambridge,  Henley,  and  Putney.  Crown 
8vo.,  10s.  bd, 


COURSING  AND  FALCONRY. 
By  Harding  Cox  and  the  Hon.  Gerald 
Lascelles.  With  20  Plates  and  56  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.     Crown  8vo.,  10s.  bd. 


CRICKET.  By  A.  G.  Steel  and 
the  Hon.  R.  H.  Lyttelton.  With  Con- 
tributions by  Andrew  Lang,  W.  G.  Grace, 
F.  Gale,  &c.  With  12  Plates  and  52  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.     Crown  8vo.,  105.  bd. 


MESSRS.   LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 

Sport  and  Pastime — continued. 
THE  BADMINTON  LIBRARY— continued. 


CYCLING.  By  the  Earl  of  Albe- 
marle and  G.  Lacy  Hillier.  With  ig 
Plates  and  44  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

DANCING.     By  Mrs.  Lilly  Grove, 

F.R.G.S.  With  Contributions  by  Miss 
Middleton,  The  Hon.  Mrs.  Armytage, 
Sec.  With  Musical  Examples,  and  38  Full- 
page  Plates  and  93  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

DRIVING.  By  His  Grace  the  Duke 
of  Beaufort,  K.G.  With  Contributions  by 
other  Authorities.  With  Photogravure 
Intaglio  Portrait  of  His  Grace  the  Duke  of 
Beaufort,  and  n  Plates  and  54  Illustra- 
tions in  the  Text.     Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

FENCING,        BOXING,        AND 

WRESTLING.  By  Walter  H.  Pollock, 
F.  C.  Grove,  C.  Prevost,  E.  B.  Mitchell, 
and  Walter  Armstrong.  With  18  Intaglio 
Plates  and  24  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

FISHING.  By  H.  Cholmondeley- 
Pennell,  Late  Her  Majesty's  Inspector 
of  Sea  Fisheries. 

Vol.  I.  SALMON  AND  TROUT.  With 
Contributions  by  H.  R.  Francis,  Major 
John  P.  Traherne,  &c.  With  Frontis- 
piece, 8  Full-page  Illustrations  of  Fishing 
Subjects,  and  numerous  Illustrations  of 
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Vol.  II.  PIKE  AND  OTHER  COARSE 
FISH.  With  Contributions  by  the 
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G.  Christopher  Davis,  &c.  With 
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tions of  Tackle,  &c.      Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

GOLF.     By  Horace  G.  Hutchinson. 

With  Contributions  by  the  Rt.  Hon.  A.  J. 
Balfour,  M. P.,  Sir  Walter  Simpson,  Bart., 
Andrew  Lang,  &c.  With  25  Plates  and 
65  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo., 
10s.  6d. 

HUNTING.    By  His  Grace  the  Duke 

of  Beaufort,  K.G. , and  Mowbray  Morris. 
With  Contributions  by  the  Earl  of  Suffolk 
and  Berkshire,  Rev.  E.  W.  L.  Davies, 
J.  S.  Gibbons,  G.  H.  Longman,  &c.  With 
5  Plates  and  54  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,  105.  bd. 


MOUNTAINEERING.      By  C.  T. 

Dent.  With  Contributions  by  Sir  W.  M. 
Conway,  D.  W.  Freshfield,  C.  E. 
Matthews,  &c.  With  13  Plates  and  95 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.     Cr.  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 


POETRY  OF  SPORT  {THE).— 
Selected  by  Hedley  Peek.  With  a 
Chapter  on  Classical  Allusions  to  Sport  by 
Andrew  Lang,  and  a  Special  Preface  to 
the  Badminton  Library  by  A.  E.  T.  Watson.  ■ 
With  32  Plates  and  74  Illustrations  in  the 
Text.     Crown  Svo.,  105.  6d. 


RACING  AND  STEEPLE-CHAS- 
ING. By  the  Earl  of  Suffolk  and 
Berkshire,  W.  G.  Craven,  the  Hon.  F. 
Lawley,  Arthur  Coventry,  and  Alfred 
E.  T.  Watson.  With  Coloured  Frontis- 
piece and  56  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,   10s.  6d. 


RIDLNG  AND  POLO. 

RIDING.  By  Captain  Robert  Weir, 
the  Duke  of  Beaufort,  the  Earl  of 
Suffolk  and  Berkshire,  the  Earl  of 
Onslow,  J.  Murray  Brown,  &c.  With 
18  Plates  and  41  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,  105.  6<f. 


SEA  FISHING.  By  John  Bicker- 
dyke,  Sir  H.  W.  Gore-Booth,  Alfred 
C.  Harmsworth,  and  W.  Senior.  With 
22  Full-page  Plates  and  175  Illustrations  in 
the  Text.     Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 


SHOOTING. 

Vol.  I.  FIELD  AND  COVERT.  By  Lord 
Walsingham  and  Sir  Ralph  Payne- 
Gallwey,  Bart.  With  Contributions  by 
the  Hon.  Gerald  Lascelles  and  A.  J. 
Stuart-Wortley.  With  11  Full-page 
Illustrations  and  94  Illustrations  in  the 
Text.     Crown  8vo.,  ias.  6d. 

Vol.  II.  MOOR  AND  MARSH.  By 
Lord  Walsingham  and  Sir  Ralph  Payne- 
Gallwey,  Bart.  With  Contributions  by 
Lord  Lovat  and  Lord  Charles  Lennox 
Kerr.  With  8  Full-page  Illustrations 
and  57  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
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12         MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Sport  and.   Pastime — continued. 

THE  BADMINTON  LIBRARY— t continued. 


SKATING,  CURLING,  TOBOG- 
GANING. By  J.  M.  Heathcote,  C.  G. 
Tebbutt,  T.  Maxwell  Witham,  Rev. 
John  Kerr,  Ormond  Hake,  Henry  A. 
Buck,  &c.  With  12  Plates  and  272  Illus- 
trations and  Diagrams  in  the  Text.  Crown 
8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

SWIMMING.  By  Archibald  Sin- 
clair and  William  Henry,  Hon.  Sees, 
of  the  Life-Saving  Society.  With  13  Plates 
and  106  Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown 
8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

TENNIS,  LA  WN  TENNIS, 
RACKETS  AND  FIVES.  By  J.  M.  and 
C.  G.  Heathcote,  E.  O.  Pleydell- 
Bouverie,  and  A.C.  Ainger.  With  Contri- 
butions by  the  Hon.  A.  Lyttelton,  W.  C. 
Marshall,  Miss  L.  Dod,  &c.  With  12 
Plates  and  67  Illustrations  in  the  Text. 
Crown  8vo.,  105.  6d. 


YACHTING. 

Vol.  I.  CRUISING,  CONSTRUCTION 
OF  YACHTS,  YACHT  RACING 
RULES,  FITTING-OUT, &c  By  Sir 
Edward  Sullivan,  Bart.,  The  Earl  of 
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monthly. 

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'3 


Sport  and  Pastime — continued. 


DEAD  SHOT  {The):  or,  Sportsman's 
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Ellis. — Chess  Spare's  ;  or,  Short  and 
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Falkener. — Games,  Ancient  and 
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Ford. — The  Theory  and  Practice 
of  Archery.  By  Horace  Ford.  New 
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Francis. — A  Boor-  on  Angling  :  or, 

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'  Lady-Toboganner  '.  With  40  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo.,  65. 

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"Lang.— Angling  Sa'etches.  By 
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Maskelyne. — Sharps  and  Flats  :  a 

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Park. — The  Game  of  Golf.  By 
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mology. By  Alfred  Ronalds.  With  20 
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14 


MESSRS.   LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Mental,  Moral,  and  Political  Philosophy 

LOGIC,  RHETORIC 


Abbott. — The  Elements  of  Logic. 
By  T.  K.  Abbott,  B.D.     i2mo.,  3s. 

Aristotle. 

The  Politics:  G.  Bekker's  Greek 
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Justinian. — The      Institutes      of 

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lation, Notes,  and  Summary.  By  Thomas 
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Kant  (Immanuel). 
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15 


Mental,  Moral  and  Political   Philosophy — continued. 


Kant  (Immanuel) — continued. 

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Ladd  (George  Trumbull). 
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Lewes. — The  History  of  Philoso- 
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Max  Miiller  (F.). 
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Mill. — Analysis  of  the  Phenomena 
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Mill  (John  Stuart). 
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Romanes. — Mind  and  Motion  and 
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Stock. — Deductive  Logic.  By  St. 
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Sully  (James). 

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16        MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Mental,  Moral,  and  Political  Philosophy — continued. 

MANUALS   OF  CATHOLIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

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Max  Miiller  (F.). 

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10s.  6(7. 

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Essays  on  Social  Reform.     By  the  Rev.  S. 
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MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS.         17 


Political  Economy  and  Economies — continued. 


Mulhall. — Industries  and  Wealth 
of  Nations.  By  Michael  G.  Mulhall, 
F.S.S.  With  32  full-page  Diagrams. 
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Soderini. — Socialism  and  Catholi- 
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Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Symes. — Political  Economy:  a 
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Vincent. —  The  Land  Question  in 
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Romanes   (George    John). 
Darwin,  and  after  Darwin:  an 
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ISM.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

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Aristotle. —  Youth  and  Old  Age, 
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19 


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Crown  8vo.,  3s.  bd. 


22        MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Works  of  Fiction,    Humour,   &e. — continued. 


Haggard  (H.  Rider) — continued. 
Beatrice.     Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6c/. 

Eric  Brighteyes.  With  51  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d. 

Nada  the  Lily.  With  23  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6rf. 

Allan's  Wife.  With  34  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

The  Witch's  Head.  With  16 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Mr.  Meeson's  Will.  With  16 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  35.  6d. 

Dawn.  With  16  Illustrations.  Cr. 
8vo.,  3s.  6rf. 

Haggard  and  Lang.— The  World's 

Desire.  By  H.  Rider  Haggard  and 
Andrew  Lang.  With  27  Illustrations. 
Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Harte. — In  the  Carquinez   Woods 

and  other  stories.  By  Bret  Harte.  Cr. 
8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Hope.— The  Heart  of  Princess 
Osra.  By  Anthony  Hope.  With  9  Illus- 
trations by  John  Williamson.  Crown 
8vo.,  6s. 

Hornung. — The  Unbidden  Guest. 

By  E.  W.  Hornung.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Lang. — A  Monk  of  Fife  ;  being 
>.the  Chronicle  written  by  Norman  Leslie 
of  Pitcullo,  concerning  Marvellous  Deeds 
that  befel  in  the  Realm  of  France,  1429-31. 
By  Andrew  Lang.  With  13  Illustrations 
by  Selwyn  Image.     Cr.  8vo.,  6s. 

Lyall  (Edna). 
The  A  utobiographyof  a  Slander. 
Fcp.  8vo.,  is.,  sewed. 
Presentation  Edition.     With  .20  Illustra- 
tions  by   Lancelot   Speed.       Crown 
8vo.,  2s.  6c/.  net. 
The  Autobiography  of  a   Truth. 

Fcp.  8vo.,  is.,  sewed  ;  is.  6d.,  cloth. 
Doreen.     The  Story  of  a  Singer. 
Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Magruder.— The  Violet.   By  Julia 

Magruder.  With  11  Illustrations  by  C. 
D.  Gibson.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Matthews. — His  Father's  Son:    a 

Novel  of  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange. 
By  Brander  Matthews.  With  13  Illus- 
trations.    Cr.  8vo.,  6s. 


Melville  (G.  J.  Whyte). 

The  Gladiators. 
The  Interpreter. 
Good  for  Nothing. 
The  Queen's  Maries. 


Holmby  House. 
Kate  Coventry. 
Digby  Grand. 
General  Bounce. 


3rown  8vo.,  is.  6d.  each. 

Merriman. — Flotsam:  The  Study 
of  a  Life.  By  Henry  Seton  Merriman, 
With  Frontispiece  and  Vignette  by  H.  G. 
Massey,  A.R.E.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Morris  (William). 

The  Well  a  t  the  World's  End. 
2  vols.    8vo.,  28s. 

The  Story  of  the  Glittering 
Plain,  which  has  been  also  called  The 
Land  of  the  Living  Men,  or  The  Acre  of 
the  Undying.     Square  post  8vo.,  5s.  net. 

The  Roots  of  the  Mountains, 
wherein  is  told  somewhat  of  the  Lives  of 
the  Men  of  Burgdale,  their  Friends,  their 
Neighbours,  their  Foemen,  and  their 
Fellows-in-Arms.  Written  in  Prose  and 
Verse.     Square  crown  8vo.,  8s. 

A    Tale   of   the    House   of   the 
■    Wolfings,  and  all  the  Kindreds  of  the 

Mark.      Written    in    Prose    and    Verse. 

Second  Edition.     Square  crown  8vo.,  6s. 

A   Dream  of  John  Ball,  and  a 

King's  Lesson     i2mo.,  is.  6d. 
.News  from    Nowhere;     or,    An 
Epoch   of  Rest.      Being  some   Chapters 
from  an   Utopian   Romance.      Post  8vo., 
is.  6d. 
%*  For  Mr.  William  Morris's  Poetical 
Works,  see  p.  20. 

Newman  (Cardinal). 
Loss  and   Gain:    The    Story  of  a 
Convert.     Crown  8vo.     Cabinet  Edition, 
6s.  •   Popular  Edition,  3s.  6d. 

Callista  :  A  Tale  of  the  Third 
Century.  Crown  Svo.  Cabinet  Edition, 
6s. ;   Popular  Edition,  3s.  6d. 

Oliphant.— Old      Mr.      Tredgold. 

By  Mrs.  Oliphant.     Crown  Svo.,  6s. 

Phillipps-Wolley.— Snap:  a  Legend 
of  the  Lone  Mountain.  By  C.  Phillipps- 
Wolley.  With  13  Illustrations.  Crown 
8vo. ,  3s.  6d. 

Quintana. — The  Cid   Campeador  : 

an  Historical  Romance.  By  D.  Antonio 
de  Trueba  y  la  Quintana.  Translated 
from  the  Spanish  by  Henry  J.  Gill,  M.A., 
T.C.D.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 


MESSRS.   LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


23 


Works  of  Fiction,   Humour,   &c. — continued. 


Rhoscomyl  (Owen). 
The  Jewel  of  Ynys  Galon  :  being 

a  hitherto  unprinted  Chapter  in  the  History 
of  the  Sea  Rovers.  With  12  Illustrations 
by  Lancelot  Speed.     Cr.  8vo.,  35.  bd. 

Battlement     and      Tower  :      a 

Romance.  With  Frontispiece  by  R. 
Caton  Woodville.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

Rokeby.  —  Dorcas   Hobday.       By 
Charles  Rokeby.     Crown  8vo.,  65. 

Sewell  (Elizabeth  M.). 

A  Glimpse  of  the  World      Amy  Herbert 
Laneton  Parsonage.  Cleve  Hall. 

Margaret  Percival.  Gertrude. 

Katharine  Ashton.  Home  Life. 

The  Earl's  Daughter.  I  After  Life. 

The  Experience  of  Life       |  Ursula.     Ivors. 
Cr.  8vo.,  15.  bd.  each  cloth  plain.     25.  bd 
each  cloth  extra,  gilt  edges. 

Stevenson  (Robert  Louis). 

The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll 
and  Mr.  Hyde.  Fcp.  8vo.,  is.  sewed, 
is.  bd.  cloth. 

The  Strange  Case  of  Dr. 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde;  with  other 
Fables.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

More  New  Arabian  Nights — The 
Dynamiter.  By  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son and  Fanny  van  de  Grift  Steven- 
son.    Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

The  Wrong  Box.  By  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  and  Lloyd  Osbourne. 
Crown  8vo.,  3s.  bd. 

Suttner. — Lay  Down    Your   Arms 

[Die  Waffen  Niedcr) :  The  Autobiography 
of  Martha  Tilling.  By  Bertha  von 
Suttner.  Translated  by  T.  Holmes. 
Cr.  8vo.,  is.  6d. 

Trollope  (Anthony). 
The  Warden.     Cr.  8vo.,  is.  6d. 
Barchester    Towers.      Cr.    8vo., 

is.  6d. 

True  (A)  Relation  of  the  Travels 
and  Perilous  Adventures  of  Mathew 
Dudgeon,  Geatleman:  Wherein  is  truly 
set  down  the  Manner  of  his  Taking,  the 
Long  Time  of  his  Slavery  in  Algiers,  and 
Means  of  his  Delivery.  Written  by  Himself, 
and  now  for  the  first  time  printed.  Cr.  8vo.,  5s. 


Walford  (L.  B.). 

Mr.  Smith.-  a  Part  of  his  Life. 
Crown  8vo.,  2s.  bd. 

The  Baby's    Grandmother.     Cr. 

8vo.,  2s.  6d. 

Cousins.     Crown  8vo.,  25.  6d. 
Troublesome    Daughters.        Cr. 

8vo.,  2s.  6d. 

Pauline.     Crown.  8vo.,  25.  6d. 
Dick  Netherby.     Cr.  8vo.,  is.  6d. 
The   History  of  a     Ween.      Cr. 

8vo.  2s.  6d. 

A  Stiff-necked  Generation.     Cr. 

8vo.  25.  bd. 

Nan,  and  other  Stories.     Cr.  8vo., 

25.  bd. 

The  Mischief  of  Monica.  Cr. 
8vo.,  25.  6d. 

The  One  Good  Guest.  Cr.  8vo. 
25.  bd. 

'  Ploughed,''  and  other  Stories. 
Crown  8vo.,  25.  bd. 

The  Ma  tchmaker.    Cr.  8vo. ,  2s.  6cL 

West  (B.  B.). 

Half-Hours  with  the  Million- 
aires: Showing  how  much  harder  it  is 
to  spend  a  million  than  to  make  it.  Cr. 
8vo.,  6s. 

Sir  Simon  Vanderpetter,  and 
Minding  his  Ancestors.     Cr.  8vo.,  55. 

A  Financial  Atonement.  Cr.  8vo., 

6s. 

Weyman  (Stanley). 

The  House  of  the  Wolf.  Cr. 
Svo.,  1%.  bd. 

A  Gentleman  of  France.   Cr.  8vo., 

6s. 

The  Red  Cockade.     Cr.  8vo.,  65. 

Whishaw. — A  Boyar  of  the 
Terrible  :  a  Romance  of  the  Court  of 
Ivan  the  Cruel,  First  Tzar  of  Russia. 
By  Fred.  Whishaw.  With  12  Illustra- 
tions by  H.  G.  Massev,  A.  R.E.  Crown 
8vo.,  6s. 


24 


MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Popular  Science  (Natural  History,  &c). 


Butler. — Our  Household  Insects. 
An  Account  of  the  Insect-Pests  found  in 
Dwelling-Houses.  By  Edward  A.  Butler, 
B.A.,  B.Sc.  (Lond.).  With  113  Illustra- 
tions.    Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6<7. 


Furneaux  (W.). 

The  Outdoor  World;  or  The 
Young  Collector's  Handbook.  With  18 
Plates  16  of  which  are  coloured,  and  549 
Illustrations  in  the  Text.  Crown  8vo., 
7s.  6d. 

Butterflies  and  Moths  (British). 
With  12  coloured  Plates  and  241  Illus- 
trations in  the  Text.    Crown  Svo.,  12s.  6d. 

Life  in  Ponds  and  Streams. 
With  8  coloured  Plates  and  331  Illustra- 
tions in  the  Text.     Crown  Svo.,  12s.  6d. 


Hartwig  (Dr.  George). 

The  Sea  and  its  Living  Wonders. 
With  12  Plates  and  303  Woodcuts.  8vo., 
75.  net. 

The  Tropical  World.  With  8 
Plates  and  172  Woodcuts.     8vo.,  js.  net. 

The  Polar  WoRLD.With  3  Maps, 
8  Plates  and  85  Woodcuts.     8vo.,  js.  net. 

The  Subterranean  World.  With 
3  Maps  and  80  Woodcuts.     8vo.,  js.  net. 

The  Aerial  World.  With  Map,  8 
Plates  and  60  Woodcuts.     Svo.,  js.  net. 

Heroes  of  the  Polar  World.  19 
Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  2s. 

Wonders  of  the  Tropical  Forests. 
40  Illustrations.     Cr.  Svo.,  2s. 

Workers  under  the  Ground.  29 
Illustrations.     Cr.  Svo.,  2s. 

Marvels  Over  our  Heads.  29 
Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  25. 


Sea  Monsters  and  Sea  Birds. 
Illustrations.     Cr.  Svo.,  25.  6d. 


75 


Denizens  of  the  Deep. 
trations.     Cr.  8vo.,  25.  6d. 


117  Illus- 


Hartwig  (Dr.  George)— continued. 

Vol  ca  noes  a  nd  Ea  r  thq  ua  kes.    3  o 
Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  zs.  6d. 

Wild   Animals   of   the    Tropics. 
66  Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 


Hayward. — Bird  Notes.  By  the  late 

Jane  Mary  Hayward.  Edited  by  Emma 
Hubbard.  With  Frontispiece  and  15  Illus 
trations  by  G.  E.  Lodge.     Cr.  Svo.,  6s. 


Helmholtz. — Popular  Lectures  on 
Scientific  Subjects.  By  Hermann  von 
Helmholtz.  With  68  Woodcuts.  2  vols. 
Cr.  Svo.,  3s.  6d.  each. 


Hudson. — British  Birds.  By  W. 
H.  Hudson,  C.M.Z.S.  With  a  Chapter  on 
Structure  and  Classification  by  Frank  E, 
Beddard,  F.R.S.  With  16  Plates  (8  of 
which  are  Coloured),  and  over  100  Illustra- 
tions in  the   Text.      Crown  8vo.,   125.   6d. 


Proctor  (Richard  A.). 

Light  Science  for  Leisure  Hours. 
Familiar  Essays  on  Scientific  Subjects.  3 
vols.     Cr.  Svo.,  5s.  each. 

Rough  Ways  made  Smooth.  Fami- 
liar Essays  on  Scientific  Subjects.  Crown 
Svo.,  35.  5d. 

Pl  ea  sa  nt  Wa  rs  in  Science  .  Crown 

Svo.,  3s.  6d. 

Nature  Studies.  By  R.  A.  Proc- 
tor, Grant  Allen,  A.  Wilson,  T. 
Foster  and  E.  Clodd.  Crown  8vo., 
3s.  6d. 

Leisure  Readings.  By  R.  A.  Proc- 
tor, E.  Clodd,  A.  Wilson,  T.  Foster 
and  A.  C.  Ranyard.     Cr.  8vo. ,  3s.  6<f. 

%*  For  Mr.  Proctor's  other  books  see  Alessrs. 
Longmans  &■  Co.'s  Catalogue  of  Scientific 
Works. 


Stanley. — A  Familiar  History  of 
Birds.  By  E.  Stanley,  D.D.,  formerly 
Bishop  of  Norwich.  With  Illustrations. 
Cr.  8vo.,     3s.  6d. 


MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS.         25 


Popular   Science    (Natural  History,  &c.) — continued. 


Wood  (Rev.  J.  G.). 
Homes  without  Hands:  A  Descrip- 
tion of  the  Habitation  of  Animals,  classed 
according  to  the  Principle  of  Construc- 
tion. With  140  Illustrations.  8vo., 
7s.,  net. 

Insects  a  t  Home  :  A  Popular  Ac- 
count of  British  Insects,  their  Structure, 
Habits  and  Transformations.  With  700 
Illustrations.     8vo. ,  Js.  net. 

Insects  Abroad:  a  Popular  Account 

of  Foreign  Insects,  their  Structure,  Habits 
and  Transformations.  With  600  Illustra- 
tions.    8vo.,  7s.  net. 

Bible  Animals  :   a  Description  of 

every  Living  Creature  mentioned  in  the 
Scriptures.  With  112  Illustrations.  8vo., 
■js.  net. 

Petland     Revisited.       With     33 

Illustrations.      Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Out    of  Hooks;    a    Selection    of 

Original  Articles    on    Practical    Natural 

History.  With  n  Illustrations.  Cr.  8vo., 
3s.  6d. 


Wood  (Rev.  J.  G.) — continued. 
Strange  Dwellings  :  a  Description 

of  the  Habitations  of  Animals,  abridged 
from  '  Homes  without  Hands  '.  With  60 
Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Bird  Iife  of  the  Bible.    32  Illus- 
trations.    Cr.  8vo. ,  35.  6d. 

Wonderful  Nests.  30  Illustrations. 
Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Homes  under    the   Ground.      28 
Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  35.  6d. 

Wild  Animals  of  the  Bible.     29 
Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

Domestic  Animals  of  the  Bible. 
23  Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

The  Branch  Builders.     28  Illus- 
trations.    Cr.  8vo.,  2s.  6d. 

Social  Habit  a  tions  and  Parasitic 
Nests.     iS  Illustrations.     Cr.  8vo.,  2s. 


Works  of  Reference. 


Longmans'  Gazetteer  of  the 
World.  Edited  by  George  G.  Chis- 
holm,  M.A.,  B.Sc.  Imp.  8vo.,  £2  25.  cloth, 
£2  12s.  6d.  half-morocco. 


Maunder  (Samuel). 

Biographical  Treasury.  With 
Supplement  brought  down  to  1S89.  By 
Rev.  James  Wood.     Fcp.  8vo.,  6s. 

Treasury  of  Natural  History: 
or,  Popular  Dictionary  of  Zoology.  With 
900  Woodcuts.     Fcp.  8vo.,  65. 

Treasury  of  Geography,  Physical, 
Historical,  Descriptive,  and  Political. 
With  7  Maps  and  16  Plates.   Fcp.  Svo.,  6s. 

The  Treasury  of  Bible  Know- 
ledge. By  the  Rev.  J.  Ayre,  M.A.  With 
5  Maps,  15  Plates,  and  300  Woodcuts. 
Fcp.    8vo.,    6s. 

Treasury  of  Knowledge  and  Iib- 
rary  of  Reference.     Fcp.  8vo.,  6s. 


Maunder  (Samuel) — continued. 

Historical  Treasury.  Fcp.8vo.,6s. 

Scientific  and  Titer ary  Trea- 
sury.    Fcp.  8vo.,   6s. 

The  Treasury  of  Botany.  Edited 
by  J.  Lindley,  F.R.S.,  and  T.  Moore, 
F.L.S.  With  274  Woodcuts  and  20  Steel 
Plates.     2  vols.     Fcp.  8vo.,  12s. 

Roget.  —  Thesa  ur  us  of  English 
Words  and  Phrases.  Classified  and  Ar- 
ranged so  as  to  Facilitate  the  Expression  of 
Ideas  and  assist  in  Literary  Composition. 
By  Peter  Mark  Roget,  M.D.,  F.R.S. 
Recomposed  throughout,  enlarged  and  im- 
proved, partly  from  the  Author's  Notes,  and 
with  a  full  Index,  by  the  Author's  Son, 
John  Lewis  Roget.      Crown  8vo.,  10s.  6d. 

VJillich.-- Popular  Tables  for  giving 

information  for  ascertaining  the  value  of 
Lifehold,  Leasehold,  and  Church  Property, 
the  Public  Funds,  &c.  By  Charles  M. 
Willich.  Edited  by  H.  Bence  Jones. 
Crown  Svo.,    10s.   6d. 


26        MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


Children's  Books. 


Crake  (Rev.  A.  D.). 

Edwy   the   Fair  ;    or,    The    First 

Chronicle  of  ^Escendune.   Cr.  8vo. ,  is.  bd. 
Alfgar  the  Dane  ;  or,  The  Second 

Chronicle  of  ^Escendune.     Cr.  8vo.  2s.  bd. 
The  Rival  Heirs  :  being  the  Third 

and  Last  Chronicle  of  ^Escendune.     Cr. 

8vo.,  2s.  bd. 
The  House  of  Walderne.    A  Tale 

of  the  Cloister  and  the  Forest  in  the  Days 

of  the  Barons'  Wars.     Crown  8vo.,  2s.  bd. 
Brian  Fitz- Count.      A    Story    of 

Wallingford      Castle      and      Dorchester 

Abbey.     Cr.   8vo.,   2s.  bd. 

Lang  (Andrew). — Edited  by. 

The  Blue  Fairy  Book.     With  138 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 
The  Red  Fairy  Book.     With  100 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

The  Green  Fairy  Book.     With  99 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 
The  Yellow  Fairy  Book.     With 

104  Illustrations.      Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

The  Bl  ue  Poetry  Book.  With  100 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 
The  Blue  Poetry  Book.     School 

Edition,  without  Illustrations.     Fcp.  8vo., 

2s.    6d. 
The  True  Story  Book.     With  66 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 
The  Red  Tr  ue  Stor  y Book.    With 

100  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 

The  Animal  Story  Book.     With 
67  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  6s. 


Meade  (L.  T.). 

Daddy's  Boy.  With  Illustrations. 
Crown    8vo.,    3s.    6d. 

Deb  and  the  Duchess.  With  Illus- 
trations.    Crown  8vo.,  3s.  6d. 

The  Beresford  Prize.  With 
Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.,  3s.  bd. 

The  House  of  Surprises.     With 

Illustrations.     Crown  8vo.     3s.  bd. 

Molesworth — Silver  thorns.       By 

Mrs.  Molesworth.  With  Illustrations. 
Cr.  8vo.,  5s. 

Stevenson. — A  Child's  Garden  01 
Verses.  By  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
Fcp.   8vo.,  5s. 

Upton  (Florence  K.  and  Bertha). 

The  Adventures  of  Two  Dutcb 
Dolls  and  a  '  Golliwogg\  Illustrated 
by  Florence  K.  Upton,  with  Words 
by  Bertha  Upton.  With  31  Coloured 
Plates  and  numerous  Illustrations  in  the 
Text.     Oblong  4to.,  6s. 

The  Golliivogg's  Bicycle  Club 
Illustrated  by  Florence  K.  Upton,  with 
words  by  Bertha  Upton.  With  31 
Coloured  Plates  and  numerous  Illustra 
tions  in  the  Text.     Oblong  4to.,  6s. 

Wordsworth. —  The  Snow  Garden 

AND  OTHER    FAIRY   TALES  FOR    CHILDREN 

By  Elizabeth  Wordsworth.  With  ic 
Illustrations  by  Trevor  Haddon.  Crowr 
8vo.,  5s. 


Longmans'  Series 

Price  2s. 
Atelier  {The)  Du  Lys  :  or,  an  Art 

Student  in  the  Reign  ot  Terror. 
By  the  same  Author. 
Mademoiselle  Mori  :  a    Tha  t  Child. 

Tale  of  Modern  Rome.    Under  a 'Cloud. 
In  the  Olden  Time  :  a  ;  Hester' sVenture 
Tale   of  the   Peasant  I  7 he    Fiddler    of 
War  in  Germany.  Lugau. 

The  Younger  Sister,  j  A    Child    of    the 
Revolution. 


Atherstone    Priory.        By    L.    N. 

COMYN. 

The  Story  of  a  Spring  Morning, 
etc.     By  Mrs.  Molesworth.     Illustrated. 

The  Palace  in  the  Garden.      By 
Mrs.    Molesworth.     Illustrated. 


of  Books  for  Girls. 

bd.  each. 

Neighbours.     By  Mrs.  Molesworth 
The  Third  Miss  St.  Quentin.     Bj 

Mrs.  Molesworth. 
Very  Young;  and  Quite  Anothei 

Story.  Two  Stories.  By  Jean  Ingelow 
Can  this  be  Love?  By  Louisa  Parr 
Keith  Deramore.     By  the  Author  o 

'  Miss  Molly  '. 
Sidney.     By  Margaret  Deland. 
An     Arranged     Marriage.        B) 

Dorothea  Gerard. 
Last   Words  to  Girls  on  Life  ai 

School  and  after  School.     By  Marl* 

Grey.  

Stray   Thoughts  for    Girls.      B) 

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MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS.         31 


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trations.    Crown  8vo.,  25. 

Richardson. —  Na  tional   Health. 

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Rossetti.  -  A    Shadow  of  Dante  : 

being  an  Essay  towards  studying  Himself, 
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Francesca  Rossetti.  With  Frontispiece 
by  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.  Crown 
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Solovyoff. — A  Modern  Priestess 
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and  Translated  on  Behalf  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  from  the  Russian  of 
Vsevolod  Sergyeevich  Solovyoff.  By 
Walter  Leaf,  Litt.  D.  With  Appendices. 
Crown  8vo.,  6s. 


Stevens. — On  the  Stoivage  of  Ships 
and  their  Cargoes.  With  Information  re- 
garding Freights,  Charter-Parties,  &c.  By 
Robert  White  Stevens,  Associate-Mem- 
ber of  the  Institute  of  Naval  Architects. 
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West. —  Wills,  and  How  Not  to 
Make  them.  With  a  Selection  of  Leading 
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t*  For  Church  of  England  and  Roman  Catholic  Works  see  Messrs.  Longmans  &  Co.'s 

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Bird  (Robert). 
A    Child's  Religion. 


Cr.  8vo.,  25. 


Joseph,    the    Dreamer. 
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Crown 


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OF 


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and  the  Lake  of 


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32         MESSRS.  LONGMANS  &  CO.'S  STANDARD  AND  GENERAL  WORKS. 


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De  la  Saussaye.  —  A  Manual  of 

the  Science  of  Religion.  By  Professor 
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Muller).     Crown  Svo.,  125.  bd. 


Gibson.—  The  Abbe  de  Lamennais. 
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Kalisch(M.  M.,  Ph.D.). 


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Unspoken  Sermons.     Three  Series. 
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The    Miracles     of    our     Lord. 
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Phillips.  —  The  Teaching  of  the 
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Romanes. — Thoughts  on  Religion. 
By  George  J.  Romanes,  LL.D.,  F.R.S* 
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S  UPERNA  TURAL     RELLGLON : 

an  Inquiry  into  the  Reality  of  Divine  Revela- 
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Reply  (A)  to  Dr.  Lightfoot's 
£ssavs.  By  the  Author  of '  Supernatural 
Religion '.     8vo.,  6s. 

The  Gospel  according  to  St. 
Peter:  a  Study.  By  the  Author  of 
'Supernatural  Religion'.     8vo.,  6s. 

Vivekananda. —  Yoga  Philosophy  ■ : 

Lectures  delivered  in  New  York,  Winter  of 
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Date  Due 

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